


World War Me

by TenSpencerRiedPlease



Series: Trial and Error [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Canon Divergence - Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Consent Issues, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Hurt Tony Stark, Hurt/Comfort, Mental Health Issues, POV Alternating, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, all the feels, also Tony will remain on bad terms with the Avengers in this, no rape to be clear though, the consent issues are elsewhere, they are no longer a team
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-14
Updated: 2017-02-09
Packaged: 2018-08-14 23:54:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 29
Words: 90,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8033953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TenSpencerRiedPlease/pseuds/TenSpencerRiedPlease
Summary: Steve is standing in the doorway looking nervous, perhaps rightfully so but neither of them were idiots. Without the suit Tony was no match for one Bucky Barnes and hell, even with the suit that was debatable. Tony was more than aware of that fact, had been kept awake the last three nights knowing that, and his being exhausted now made him nervous. God even knew what would happen if he fell asleep. FRIDAY was under strict instructions to keep Barnes the hell away from him at all times.   Playlist!





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The work title is taken from World War Me by Theory of a Deadman and is a very good song, go listen to it. 
> 
> Now this is gunna be a long emotional journey my friends because Tony and Bucky have a lot of shit they have to work through separately and together before they even think of getting together so. Hopefully this will work through all of that! A lot of fic (still love you all, and honestly me too man) sort of glosses over Tony's parents being killed by the WS so I decided to make a story where that didn't happen and hopefully I deal with it okay. Also, as the tags note, the Avengers are no longer a thing, or at least not with Tony on the team. They're still in contact and stuff but Tony no longer considers himself a part of the team, but more on that later in the story.
> 
> Also the consent issues are going to play a fairly large role and sort of present in this chapter so a warning for that, as well as general mental health issues. If something else needs to be added let me know and I'll add it into the notes here (or make a tag depending on how relevant the thing might be to later chapters).
> 
> Final note, later chapters will be far longer than this lil taster.

Tony looks in the mirror and takes a deep breath, trying to steady himself for what was to come. Not for the first time he wondered why he agreed to this in the first place but he already knew why. Guilt. It was always fucking guilt with him, always agonizing over some new and shitty decision he made in haste. Not for the first time he wondered if it would be easier to just… disappear, leave and go somewhere forever and never have to deal with anything ever again. But he couldn’t do that, he had too much to do, too much other people expected him to do, always too damn much…

He sighs and pulls himself back from the mirror and straightens his back, throwing back his shoulders, and dropping the sunglasses from the top of his head to the bridge of his nose. He looked more like Tony Stark now, at least what he allowed people to see of him. It was a familiar routine and he finds some comfort in it, and in the fact that FRIDAY was accessible through the glasses if he needed anything. He pauses at the door for a moment before giving himself a final shake and heading out to go deal with this.

Steve is standing in the doorway looking nervous, perhaps rightfully so but neither of them were idiots. Without the suit Tony was no match for one Bucky Barnes and hell, even with the suit that was debatable. Tony was more than aware of that fact, had been kept awake the last three nights knowing that, and his being exhausted now made him nervous. God even knew what would happen if he fell asleep. “Are you okay?” Steve asks and Tony can’t help the way his face twists in annoyance.

“Like you care. Just stick Barnes downstairs and go,” he says harshly.

Steve opens his mouth to respond and then closes it, frowning, “wait, downstairs? We agreed to have him stay with you,” he says.

“Yeah, downstairs with his own space and stuff. He still has access to my space like the rest of you did when you were living here,” he says even though that’s half true. FRIDAY was under strict instructions to keep Barnes the hell away from him at all times. He’d obviously check on the guy, mostly for his own piece of mind, making sure he didn’t somehow slip FRIDAY to go creep around in his space, but still. It counted. And besides, harboring his parents’ murderer while paying for his damn trial to keep him out of prison was more than nice enough in his opinion.

It wasn’t like Barnes _actually_ killed anyone, not while he was himself anyways. And god, that just pissed him off even more. The guy got to walk around scot-free after all that he’s done because it wasn’t even _him_. His mother would never get any justice, all those other people the Winter Soldier killed wouldn’t get any justice, because they couldn’t prosecute the weapon living in the man’s body. Well, _was_ in the man’s body. As it turned out with a little collaboration with T’Challa they had figured out how to tweak his mind meddling invention to meddle with Barnes’ mind and get rid of the trigger words to the Soldier’s training. The problem was that they had to test that out a few times and, well, Bucky hadn’t been pleased with that. Not that Tony cared, or at least that’s what he told himself.

*

Bucky trails along behind Steve but it’s impossible to miss how stiff Tony is, the way he keeps glancing over to him out of the corner of his eye. It made him wonder why Tony even agreed to this, what his intentions were but Steve assured him that Tony was safe. T’Challa had too, telling him that Tony was hurt but not overwhelmed by it. Looking at the man, observing the way he presses himself into a corner as far away from Bucky as he can get, giving him suspicious looks, Bucky doubted that was true. He knew very well what fear looked like, felt like, and Tony was giving him ratings that were off the charts.

At least he wasn’t filtering through ways to kill him though, not like before. Sometimes… sometimes he’d lose time, before Tony did whatever to his mind, and he’d wake up somewhere with no memory of how he got there. That used to scare the hell out of him so he started to keep track of his time, his thoughts. But it was hard when things were so jumbled up and confusing in his head. Sometimes he’d be thinking about something and functioning fine and the next he’d wake up starving three countries over with no idea of how that happened. He’d look for clues, signs that he did something wrong, but he knew how to clean up after himself. The world had a half a dozen assassinations on file but his hit count was easily five times that. He still dreamed of them sometimes, usually in their last moments and it terrified him that all he felt was cold.

He’s seen so many people scared, afraid, begging for their lives and all he felt was _cold_. There was no guilt, not sadness, no empathy. Nothing. All he was was a cold shell doing someone else’s bidding. Steve assured him that the trigger words were gone; he was okay now, safe. But when he lost time before there were no words and he still had no idea what he did in that time. What if he wasn’t safe to be around? What if Tony was right to press himself into the corner of the elevator like he was about to be attacked at any moment? Maybe he should be scared; Bucky was scared of himself most days. Even with the trigger words gone he could feel… things, things he didn’t understand and what if those things triggered his training?

Maybe the government was right to want him in jail; he couldn’t hurt people there. And after what he’s done…

“Bucky,” Steve says softly, reaching out to comfort him. He resists the urge to flinch back from the touch because that only made it worse- no. Steve wasn’t HYDRA; he didn’t hurt him if he flinched. Instead he was hurt when Bucky flinched, eyebrows pinching together and lips turning down when Bucky tried to avoid his touch. It gave him an odd twisting feeling in his stomach when Steve made that face so he suffers the touch without flinching or responding at all. “It’s okay,” he assures, “Tony will figure this all out.”

It takes him a moment to figure out that Steve thinks that he’s worried about the trial and how it’ll go. “They can’t really deny that you had no control over your actions, and they were pretty uncomfortable when I suggested putting you in jail would essentially be criminalizing abuse victims and mental illness,” Tony says. The words are meant to be comforting and Bucky finds them odd and foreign when compared to his still nervous body language. He can tell that Tony is sure his argument was reasonable, but he can’t tell if Tony believes it. Bucky doesn’t know if he believes it either.

“Maybe-” he starts and Steve cuts him off.

“No!” he all but yells and Tony flinches hard, cringing further into his corner and Bucky would like to follow but Steve makes that hurt face when he did that too so he doesn’t react at all. “You couldn’t help it, you shouldn’t be punished because someone else… because of what HYDRA did,” Steve says in a softer tone. This, Bucky knows, Steve believes wholeheartedly. He’s heard the argument many times but he still did all those things, _someone_ should have to pay for them and _he_ was the one that killed all those people…

The door to the elevator dings open and Tony is out so fast he’s a blur as he moves, putting as much space as he could between himself and Bucky before Steve started making faces. So Tony used those as cues too, okay. Maybe that was normal then but T’Challa didn’t do that… but the rest of the Avengers did so maybe it was T’Challa who wasn’t normal…

“So this is your new space, kitchen’s over there, living room, your bedroom and bathroom is down the hall. Everything you need is here and Steve gave me a list of stuff you like for food so that should be fine too,” Tony says, gesturing all around the large open concept place they were in. The space was nice, clearly newly remodeled, and only seemed to hold the essentials, food included he supposed. And there were things he _liked_ though the concept was strange to him. He didn’t _like_ anything, he just ate what was in front of him and did what people expected him to do. There was no need to _like_ things. Do normal people like things? He wasn’t sure because the people he’s spent time with were so random and bizarre, they did all sorts of things and he didn’t understand them. The things they did weren’t useful or productive so why do them?

Tony’s moving caught his attention, “so anyways I have things to do so see ya,” he says, fleeing from the room before he can see the face Steve makes. So maybe he didn’t use Steve’s face as a way to judge behavior? But he reeked of nervousness and fear so when he disappears into the elevator Bucky understands.

“That was rude,” Steve says, frowning at the closing elevator doors. Tony’s lips were moving but his speech was too low for even his hearing to catch.

“I think he was afraid,” Bucky says dumbly. It was _obvious_ Tony was afraid, his statement was useless and added nothing to the understanding of the situation. He half expects some form of retaliation for that, useless words were not spoken, but all Steve does is make another one of those faces. This time he’s annoyed but he doesn’t seem annoyed at Bucky.

“I don’t see why, he fixed you and any other time he’s perfectly confident in his abilities to fix things,” Steve says. Fix things, yes, but Tony didn’t fix him, he’s still broken. The Soldier was still there, underneath his skin just waiting to come out. Bucky could feel it… him?... it? there, waiting there for a weak moment to make a reappearance. The thought scares him.

“I guess,” Bucky says quietly when Steve tilts his head at him in question. Too long between speech, he’s figured that one out. It was still a strange concept to him that he was expected to speak even when he wasn’t directly spoken to.

*

The shower runs hot and loud while Tony tries to drown out his inner thoughts and turmoil. _Shit_ this was actually happening and he couldn’t escape it now. He should have just shuffled Barnes off to some fucking psych ward or something, he probably needed it, but Steve hadn’t been sure how safe that would be and things were safer here.

For _who_ Tony was uncertain, but Steve didn’t care about that. Barnes would be safe here for the time being and he would… he would deal with it he guessed, given that he didn’t have much choice now. He agreed to the arrangement, agreed to help Barnes out after promising Steve about a million and one times that he had _no_ interest in killing Barnes. He wasn’t certain Steve even considered that Barnes might kill him. T’Challa, ever the wise one, had asked if he was alright before all of this really got rolling but Tony was a good liar when he wanted to be. He wasn’t totally sure the king bought his act but it was good enough that he backed off and Tony retreated to panic by himself.

Which was what he was doing now, curled up on the shower floor trying desperately to breathe in the hot air and calm the hell down. He could feel his limbs shaking and his vision is spotty, blurring at the edges and fuzzy all over. In a weird way he feels almost detached from his body, like he was floating on a cloud while his vision gets darker and his breathing gets more difficult. There are warning bells going off in his head but he can’t focus long enough to figure out what they’re trying to tell him, doesn’t even care what they’re trying to tell him.

“Sir,” a voice says, “ _sir_.” FRIDAY, right, “are you alright?” the AI asks. She wasn’t nearly as human as JARVIS had been but she’s still a baby, figuring things out.

“M’fine,” he slurs out, blinking rapidly to try and clear his vision.

“Your heart rate suggests otherwise, it appears you are having a panic attack,” the AI informs him.

“Could have figured that out myself, FRIDAY,” he mumbles.

“Perhaps you should exit the shower before you drown,” the AI suggests. He blinks for a moment, his head slowly clearing though he felt heavy and weak. Shit, no wonder he was so hot, the shower was still on. He reaches over and fumbles for a moment but he finally manages to turn the spray off.

He sits with his back against the tile of the shower for a long time, the water and tiles growing cold around him before FRIDAY finally urges him out of the space, insisting that he needed sleep and she was there to keep watch. But FRIDAY wasn’t JARVIS, she didn’t know what to do or how to deal with things so Tony drags himself out to the living room and pulls up his latest project on the StarkPad. Accessibility for Rhodey, and honestly everyone else who might need it coming and going through the building. It hadn’t even been something that was on his radar until Rhodey couldn’t walk anymore and getting around was a pain in the ass even with the elevators. That just wasn’t acceptable so he was working on reconfiguring things to be easier for mobility and safer too. He loses himself in the work easily, managing to stay up until long after the sun rises again.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for panic attacks mostly, I think that might be it but if not let me know and I'll add it in here.

That weird voice in the wall, the thing that calls itself FRIDAY, wakes Bucky up the next day. He hadn’t meant to fall asleep in a foreign place with no real knowledge of what was going to happen to him but he had been tired from the day before. It was exhausting to him to spend any time with Steve because he always gave him these expectant looks when he said things. They were usually references to something that happened between them in the past but he barely even remembered Steve and what he did remember wasn’t… wasn’t what he saw now.

First off Steve was far taller now, and there was just something… different about him. Bucky remembered, vaguely, a plucky small blonde who was too dumb to back down from a fight. That Steve wasn’t sure of himself but he threw himself into the fray anyways. This Steve though, he was sure of everything, _too_ sure, and he threw himself into the fray because he felt he belonged there more than anyone else. Something about the difference unsettles Bucky. This Steve was just as sure of his opinions as the old Steve but when old Steve spoke he did so even though he knew no one would listen. This new Steve _expected_ people to listen and more than that he _expected_ people to agree. The old Steve never would have been thrown when someone disagreed, he simply would have come up with a new and better argument. This Steve seemed stuck when people didn’t automatically follow his line of thought.

“Your appointment is in an hour and a half, Sargent Barnes,” FRIDAY says, pulling him from his reverie. He jumps at the sound of the voice and he resists the urge to crawl further under the blankets that were currently thrown over his body. He didn’t know how things worked here, what he was to expect. If this was Old Steve he might have had an idea but this new one was foreign and strange and he reacted in ways Bucky was unfamiliar with. Hell, as it was Bucky wasn’t even that familiar with Old Steve let alone this new one.

“You may want to prepare to go,” FRIDAY tells him and Bucky frowns, not understanding what that meant. The appointment is for mental health services, he knows, Sam gave him an idea of what to expect but the last thing he wanted was to let any doctor near him. He didn’t have good experiences with doctors, especially not ones that did things with his mind. The news that he would have to deal with another one of those doctors makes him feel queasy and small and he doesn’t want to leave his bed. “Sargent Barnes? You need to prepare to go,” that damn voice reminds him.

He doesn’t move, instead he curls tighter in a ball under the covers and tries his best to continue breathing and stave off the shaking.

*

Natasha sits at the table across from him and Tony sighs. Why Steve sent _her_ he had no idea, he was closer to most everyone else on the team, Sam included and he barely even knew the guy. “We need you,” Natasha tells him and she even sound earnest about it too, but she’s a master spy. Of course she sounded genuine, that’s her job.

“No you don’t and any other day you all like to remind me of how horrible I am. You don’t need me; you have a use for me. You aren’t a stupid woman so I see no reason why you’ve confused the two,” he says.

Natasha’s gaze is heavy as she slowly examines him, drawing some sort of conclusion from her examination. “You’re being dramatic Tony, we don’t think you’re horrible but yes, we do have use for you. And you have use for us,” she reminds him gently. Yeah, he did, but not for any of the things she might think.

“I’m not being dramatic, I’m just not fond of being the blame for everyone’s problems. If I wanted to be a constant disappointment I’d find a way to bring Howard back to life, or even Obi.” Hell, he could probably add Pepper to that list too. He still loved her, there probably wouldn’t be a time when he didn’t, but it wasn’t really romantic. He isn’t certain it ever was now but he keeps that to himself because he’s unsure if he actually believes that or if he’s just angry with Pepper for leaving him and looking for something to hurt her with. There was no use in saying something he didn’t mean and apologizing for it later like he did with everything else.

“So what you’re saying is that you don’t like when we tell you you’ve done something wrong?” Natasha says, head tilted to the side.

Tony rolls his eyes, “now whose being dramatic? I take responsibility for my actions all on my own, thank you, and I don’t mind when people point out when I’m wrong. I’m only human and I’m exceptionally stupid sometimes, it’s nice to have someone inform me when I go too far with something. But that isn’t what you all do and you know it so don’t pull that guilt shit with me. You all like to make me the source of every problem you have and I’m happy to take responsibility for my part, like Ultron, but none of you ever talk about Bruce’s involvement,” he points out. And no one talked about Thor choking him out, and he was supposed to ignore that time Steve lied about the circumstances of his parents’ death and then beat the shit out of him for it, and then he was supposed to house his parents’ murderer too.

It was all him giving and giving and giving, and also sometimes being an idiot, but they didn’t seem to give him much other than grief. He’s tired of being a punching bag, he’s lived his entire fucking life as someone’s punching bag and he was just _exhausted_ with it. Yes, he knew he was difficult and that he took things too far a lot of the time but he didn’t think _choking_ him when that happened was a very good solution. Actually it’s flat out assault but alright, it’s fine if it happens to him. God forbid that happen to Bucky though, even if it was under more than exceptional circumstances. No, he probably shouldn’t have attacked Bucky but he didn’t know a single person who wouldn’t have freaked out in their own way in that kind of circumstance and now…

Now he had his parents’ murderer living underneath of him doing god knows what all because once again he was expected to stretch his resources to accommodate for people who didn’t much care about him. Though in Bucky’s slight defense there was no reason to care about Tony before let alone after Siberia. That didn’t mean he had to be happy about this arrangement regardless of what Steve thought he should feel.

“Tony, we need you for the team now more than ever. Things are a mess right now,” Natasha points out.

“Yeah, and whose fault is that? And not just mine either, I may have done my fair share to create this mess but every time I get involved with the Avengers things go badly. Clearly I was never meant to be part of the team, obviously your assessment of me was right so just go,” he says, waving her off. His half turning in his hair indicates she’s been dismissed but she lingers for a moment before she reaches out for him.

“We _need_ you,” she says softly.

He shakes her off, “guilt trip number two isn’t going to work so just go. You’ll all do just fine without me.” And he would do fine without them either, even if he had a lot of doubts.

“Sir,” FRIDAY says, interrupting whatever Natasha was going to say, “Sargent Barnes appears to be having a difficult time getting ready for his appointment.”

Tony rubs his temples and takes in a deep breath, “define ‘hard time’ FRIDAY.” Hopefully nothing that required him to go anywhere fucking _near_ Barnes. He’s had a stressful day; he didn’t need more of that.

“He has not been able to leave his bed,” FRIDAY informs him. Natasha eyes him and he gives her a wary look back, half hoping she offers to go deal with the Barnes issue.

She doesn’t so Tony sighs, “guess I’ll go see what’s wrong,” Tony mumbles. He slowly picks himself up from his chair and eyes the door for a moment, hoping that something drastic would happen and he’d get trapped in this room. Nothing happens so he starts moving slowly towards the door to go deal with the problem all while wishing FRIDAY would tell him Bucky was suddenly fine and he didn’t have to go see what was wrong after all.

FRIDAY remains quiet as he makes his way to the elevator, taking as much time as possible to get there. Unfortunately for him that isn’t very long at all so he finds himself sealed into a metal box all too soon. He’s so distracted by the Bucky thing that he almost misses Natasha in the elevator with him. “Are you okay?” she asks, leaning towards him out of concern. She sounds far away, like he was hearing underwater.

“M’fine,” he slurs out, bracing himself against the side of the elevator. His stomach felt like it was trying to fall out of his ass, his vision was blurring and he was fairly certain he was having trouble breathing. He couldn’t tell if that was the problem or if he just wasn’t breathing. The elevator stops and Tony discovers that he _had_ been breathing because he can’t now, dreading the doors opening and revealing god knows what. What if this was some sort of trap? What if Barnes was like… faking sick or something to get him down here and… what? Kill him would be simple, maybe they didn’t remove those Winter Soldier code words at all and he somehow reverted back and-

A hand landing on his shoulder startles him, “Tony you need to breathe,” Natasha tells him, her voice sounding farther away than the last time she spoke. He wants to tell her to go away, that he can handle this himself just like he always does but him mouth isn’t moving and the rest of his body refuses to cooperate with him too. Just… what if… what if… he hears a noise and jumps hard, all rational thought abandoning his brain at that moment as he descends into a vicious circle of ‘what ifs’

*

Bucky remains under his blankets shivering and trying his best to stave off the panic he was feeling. How the hell was he supposed to get ready? What did he do first? What if those doctors were no different than the last doctors? Would Steve do that to him? Certainly Tony would, he killed the man’s parents. Did he deserve it? Probably, he wasn’t a very good person. He didn’t deserve to get help anyways, he wasn’t fixable. He could still feel the Solider there, simmering slowly just underneath the surface just waiting to come out and do… he wasn’t sure but he never wanted to find out.

“What’s going on?” a tired voice asks, causing Bucky to jump hard under his down filled shield.

“W-what?” he squeaks out, curling tighter.

“How come you aren’t moving?” the voice asks. Tony, Bucky realizes, has come down to see what was going on. How did he know about- FRIDAY.

“Do you have that AI watching me?” he asks, sounding harsher than he meant.

“She watches everyone, you aren’t that special,” Tony tells him, tone just as harsh even if there was still a tired undertone to it.

“Oh,” he says quietly, unsure of how to react to that.

“So how come you’re under the blankets?” Tony asks.

He thinks about his answer to that for a moment but he isn’t sure how to phrase his problems. “I… don’t know what to do,” he says eventually because that was the closest he could get to describing his feelings.

Tony doesn’t respond for a long moment, so long that Bucky would have thought he left if he couldn’t hear his breathing. There was someone else close by too but they remained silent for some reason. Were they a guard? Did Tony think he was dangerous? Should he? _Yes_ is the obvious answer because he _is_ a danger and maybe Tony is right to fear him. No, he _is_ right to fear him. Tony should be afraid when even he couldn’t predict his own actions.

“What don’t you know?” Tony says finally. Bucky can hear that he doesn’t want to be here dealing with him, which makes him wonder why he is. What could he possibly be getting out of this?

“Everything,” he says softly, “I don’t… I don’t know…” he clenches his jaw, annoyed that he couldn’t put real words to him problems.

“Everything?” Tony asks, “like about getting ready, the therapy thing, living here, what? That’s pretty broad, we’re going to have to narrow that down.”

“All of that,” he says. Tony had better words for his feelings than he did and that annoys him too. An image of Tony struggling for breath with Bucky’s metal hand pressed against his throat, crushing his esophagus, enters his mind and he jumps, gasping at the horrible thought. _God_ , what the hell had even made him _think_ that? Hurting Tony because he had better words was a terrible thing to do, Tony couldn’t help that.

“Okay, well getting ready is easy, change your clothes into something you’d wear in public. Therapy is easy enough, all you have to do is talk about stuff, and living here is also pretty easy. Just eat things and like… make sure you aren’t bored.” Tony makes the solutions sound easy, like he could just go _do_ those things.

But… “but how do I do those things? And what if the therapy doesn’t work? What if they’re like… like…” he can’t bring himself to say HYDRA. Even thinking the name made his blood run cold with worry and the desire to flee.

“Just put some pants and a shirt on, maybe change your underwear or something. I’d say shower but you don’t have time for that now. And I’m sure therapy will be fine, I _highly_ doubt Steve would send his precious best friend to some quack of a therapist. Knowing him he probably vetted the therapist first,” Tony says. He sounds sarcastic, angry even, about the therapy thing but he also sounds sure. His belief that Steve wouldn’t send him into something dangerous is sound, sound enough that he’s annoyed about it anyways.

Slowly he pulls the blanket back to look at Tony over the top of the down comforter. Despite the slow movements Tony still jumps when they make eye contact. He looks like hell with dark circles under his eyes, sallow skin, and his hands are shaking. If Bucky didn’t know any better he would have assumed that Tony wasn’t sleeping and that he was experiencing some sort of fight or flight response at the moment. “Okay,” he says slowly, “so what do I do?”

The person behind Tony, the redhead that he’s seen a few times before, watches them curiously, eyes bouncing back and forth between the two. “Pants, shirt, then lets go. You’re going to be late,” Tony tells him.

He nods carefully before he peels the blanket off of himself, still unsure of how this was going to play out. Tony doesn’t do much when he pulls himself out of his blankets but he does take a few involuntary steps back when his feet hit the ground.

“Well, I’ll leave you to it,” Tony says quickly before he turns and all but flees the scene. Bucky sits there for a moment, unsure of what to do and what came first and- pants, shirt, then he’s leaving. Right, the orders were clear so he sets to following him.

*

“Tony, are you okay?” Natasha asks, following behind him like a particularly annoying dog.

“I’m fine, please leave me be,” he says. He pulled himself together just fine and now FRIDAY was directing Barnes where to go and whatever so he didn’t have to worry about it.

“No you aren’t, you were freaking out back there and that isn’t okay,” Natasha says, still trailing along behind him.

He whirls around, “who cares? You certainly don’t, no does anyone else, so just _go away_ ,” he snaps.

She looks hurt by the statement and for a moment he feels bad for the comment but then he considers it for a moment and decides he has little to feel guilty for. All he did was tell the truth, it was hardly his fault it was true. “I _do_ care, Tony,” Natasha says softly.

“Only when it’s convenient, not when it matters. I mean you roll your eyes pretty much any time I bring up my feelings. I swear you think I don’t have any,” he says, shaking his head. He swore all of them thought that, even Bruce. He knew he didn’t exactly act… _normal_ per se but he thought… Well he thought maybe they knew him well enough to know what displaying emotion looked like to _him_. Clearly he thought wrong because Natasha still thought he was arrogant, Steve still ignored everything he said, and no one else even bothered to listen let alone go back on that like Natasha and Steve had. Okay, maybe minus Sam, he seemed to be the only one willing to take two seconds to care about how Tony felt about things. He’d be eternally grateful to him for asking how Rhodey was in the RAFT, especially after Clint’s snide comment.

Tony wondered what he thought of him now, after Siberia. He probably hated him until he was convenient just like everyone else.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for general mental health issues for Bucky. 
> 
> Now I'm not sure I want Wanda with Nat or Vision or if I want them all to be cooking bros or something. We'll see. Also I am sorry if this chapter is bleh- I've been hella busy and I've not had much time to get to these things. Also this is the first time I've written Wanda extensively so I'm getting some footing with her character currently.

Bucky feels deeply uncomfortable in the small, mostly white space that he was surrounded by but he doesn’t say anything about it. The doctor regards him over the top of her glasses for a long moment while Bucky assesses her. She’s thin but muscled; she likely had a regular exercise regimen, not that it would do her much good if he lost it. He could take Steve down with minimal difficulties; some baseline human wouldn’t be a problem. She tilts her head to the side as if she knew what he was thinking and he looks away.

“Do you remember your name?” she asks eventually and he’s surprised the question was so easy. Steve told him therapy would be hard, but then Tony said it was easy and all he had to do was talk. Except talking was hard because he had nothing to talk about. People talked about hobbies, likes, dislikes, friends, family, pets, school, and jobs. He didn’t have any of those things because he is not a person. He is whatever he needs to be, but he is never his own.

“James Buchanan Barnes, people call me ‘Bucky’,” he says softly, still not looking at the doctor.

“You sound like you’re reading that off a mental place card,” she notes. He was, sort of, that plaque thing with his name on it in the Smithsonian was useful even if he still had no knowledge of what or who he was then. Most he had was some vague memories of pulling Steve out of fights. The memories told him he was fondly frustrated with Steve but that he cared, at least he thinks. Everyone told him he cared so that warmth when he thought of pulling Steve’s skinny ass out of a fight must be care, right? He wasn’t sure.

“You asked, I answered,” he mumbles. What was she looking for if not for him following the order she gave?

“Alright,” she says slowly, “so people call you Bucky. What do you call yourself?” she asks.

He frowns, unsure of the answer. He called himself Bucky too, but mostly because that’s who Steve told him he was so that’s what he should call himself, right? Other people called him that too so that much be who he is. “Bucky?” he says but the answer sounds more like a question than an answer.

“You don’t sound very sure about that,” she points out.

 _What_ did this woman want? “I don’t… know,” he says eventually, not sure how to put his frustration into words. He is Bucky because people say he is Bucky, even Tony said he was Bucky and Tony didn’t like him. Dislike in people usually meant they were more truthful to you, even if that often presented itself in cruelty.

“If people didn’t call you Bucky would you call yourself that?” she asks. God this woman had a lot of questions and he didn’t know what he was supposed to answer with. Her questions were imprecise and lacking in structure. He didn’t understand what she was to gain from this and questions were always asked with the intent of learning something.

“I… don’t… don’t know,” he wheezes out, eyes wide as he stared at the floor, unsure of what was happening here.

*

Wanda waits patiently in Bucky’s section of the Tower, graciously let in by Tony. The two were stiff with each other, Wanda was still not happy with his actions before this Civil War, as the media named it, business. But he had apologized and she’s a mind reader, she knew it was genuine as much as she wanted to pretend it wasn’t. She still harbored dislike against the man but being around his mind made it difficult to hold a grudge. The fear and upset she could feel emanating from the man was almost oppressive and she was not the one living in that mind, she simply felt the after effects.

She had been hoping to see Vision but according to Tony he was off doing other things. She’d claim he was lying but she’s a mind reader, she knew he wasn’t, that he hadn’t even considered lying to her. She wants to hate him, does to some extent, but being stuck in too close of proximity with such a broken mind did little more than make her feel pity for the man. Having been away from Tony for so long she forgot how much the sharp edges of his mind hitting hers hurt. The edges were sharper than she remembered, more jagged around the borders because of the reopened grief from his parents, the grief of nearly loosing Rhodey, the grief of loosing the team, loosing himself. And then there was the anger, anger at Steve for lying, himself for failing once again, Clint for being so cruel, the Winter Solider for killing his mother, Bucky for not being the Winter Soldier despite sharing a face, Steve for making him house Bucky.

It was almost too much, being so close to so much turmoil. She’d wonder why or how she hadn’t noticed before but she already knew the answer, she had been far too distracted with the loss of her twin. Sometimes, when she first woke up from a dream that was funny or sad or otherwise notable she’d think of telling Pietro and then she would remember. After spending ten minutes sitting in Bucky’s sparse space she walks over to the elevator, instructing FRIDAY to take her to Tony’s floor. His oppressive mind was beginning to be too much and she needed to… to do something.

FRIDAY complies with no complaints and Wanda found that odd. Usually the AI had something to say in regards to her maker, much like she was told her predecessor did. Wanda still found the AI strange and foreign much like the rest of her life these days. Five years ago she never would have imagined herself here, in Tony Stark’s Tower awaiting the arrival of the man that was once the Winter Soldier. But five years ago her mind was a messy turmoil of thoughts, anger, and grief much like Tony’s is right now.

“You have a very loud mind,” she tells Tony, lightly knocking on his office door. This was the first time she has ever seen him with paperwork around him and his mind told her he wasn’t fond of the stack of work.

He looks up from the papers, seemingly grateful for the distraction, or at least that’s what his facial expressions tell her. His mind was still a swirling conglomerate of angry thoughts and betrayal. “Thought you didn’t much like my mind,” he says, raising an eyebrow.

She moves further into the room and sits down in a chair across from his desk gingerly, aware that he was not fond of anyone who was on speaking terms with Steve right now. Wanda couldn’t blame him for it either, much as she liked Steve and disliked Tony most days. If she was in Tony’s place she wouldn’t have anything to do with Steve either. “I don’t, like I said, it’s very noisy. Care to say some of that out loud? Might help,” she says, half smiling at him.

Suspicion hits her hard and for perhaps the first time since she developed telepathic abilities that suspicion was not directly related to her power. Interestingly Tony was one of the few people that didn’t fear her, at least not most of the time. But then he didn’t fear Bruce either and she’s seen first hand what he could do, and he was brave enough to take on two super soldiers by himself. It was refreshing to have someone act suspicious of her because of her affiliation with someone else rather than her ability to mess with their heads. “I have no desire to tell Steve your deepest thoughts. You are very verbal, I figure with time you will let him know yourself,” she points out. She’d never known Tony to be quiet about his opinions and it made him equally infuriating and interesting.

“Why are you here?” Tony asks, sitting back in his chair and eying her suspiciously.

That… was a complicated question. “Steve… he wanted me to check on Bucky,” she says, waving her fingers next to her temple, knowing he would get the point.

Tony squints at her in question, “so… he sent you to give some sort of report on Bucky’s mental status?” he asks.

“Essentially, yes,” she says. He was dying to say something, she could tell, but she counted on him to just get on with it and speak too.

“That doesn’t seem… shitty to you?” he asks.

She tilts her head to the side, “how so? He simply wants to know if Bucky is alright, or alright given the circumstances.” He wasn’t, she could guarantee, because HYDRA had been awful to her and she had been cooperative. The experiments alone… she suppresses a shudder at the memory.

“The guy has had his mind meddled with for seventy years without his consent, and borderline without his knowledge. You really think it’s wise to just walk in and pick at his brain however unobtrusive it is? I get that Steve is worried but Bucky is in therapy, FRIDAY is monitoring him, and I’m here however much I wish I wasn’t. He sure as hell isn’t fine now but that isn’t really an excuse to go poking at his head,” Tony says, frowning. Confusion and annoyance filter from his mind as well as his tone of voice, topped off with his general irritated body language.

“Since when do you care about Bucky? You tried to kill him,” she points out, unable to keep the barbed comment to herself.

“No, I tried to kill the Winter Soldier, not Bucky. The fact that they happen to be the same person is unfortunate,” Tony says, pushing back from his desk and standing. He takes a few steps away, hands folded behind his back neatly. “And why do I care about Bucky? You’re a mind reader; you should be able to pick up that I don’t. I’m just being logical. If someone has had their mind tampered with I doubt they would appreciate someone sending a person in to glean details off his mind without his knowledge or consent. Plus it’s just insensitive to take someone’s choice to speak on their own behalf away out of some benevolent act of protection. You’d know, I did the same thing to you not long ago locking you up in the Compound without talking to you first. Do stupid benevolent acts of misguided worry only bother you when it’s me, or is this some sort of team-wide coincidence that you all hate my behavior but only when I’m the one doing it?” he asks sharply.

The edges of his mind flash out in anger though not necessarily at her specifically. Images flash in her own mind but the one that sticks out, for whatever reason, is Thor strangling Tony. No one said anything, she knew, and the image of Bruce fully left alone also hits her hard. He had been there too when Tony made Ultron and even with her dislike of Tony she had to admit that it was odd that no one seemed to acknowledge that. And that no one reprimanded Thor for hurting Tony but Tony was literally attacked for attacking his parents’ murderer and…

“I don’t want to understand but I do,” she says softly, “I know what it’s like to act… irrationally when it comes to parents’ deaths.” She looks up at Tony and finds he’s giving her a harsh glare. His mind, though, doesn’t look nearly as confident as the rest of him did.

“Then stop acting like a sanctimonious ass. We’ve all suffered greatly, Bucky arguably more than the rest of us, but you all like to forget that I’m included in that hurt. Which is weird for you in particular, I know that you’re essentially an empath, Vision told me. Sorry about that by the way, we all must be exhausting to be around,” he says. His apology and his empathy towards her for having to deal with the team’s sadness is genuine, real.

“Some of you more than others. Natasha and Clint have very good mental shields, Steve hides his feelings so well he stops feeling them most of the time but you… you’re mind is like walking through glass. It would be impossible for me to forget that you have suffered, at least not in your presence,” she says honestly. Sometimes the team had nightmares too, at the same time even, but Tony was the one who felt the strongest and if she never dreamed of that damned arc reactor again it would be too soon. She was unsure of the significance of that ballet school to Natasha but it always ended with guns and blood and it always unsettled her for days. Wanda has seen bloodier, knows Natasha has seen bloodier, so she was unsure why the considerably tame dream affected Natasha so much.

“So what you’re saying is that you deliberately ignore that I have feelings because you think everyone else’s matter more. How the hell did _I_ get branded the selfish ass? I mean you’re all right, but I’m clearly not the only one so I don’t see why only I get penalized for it. Hypocrites,” he mumbles harshly, rolling his eyes.

She wants to deny it but he isn’t wrong. Instead she looks at the ground, frowning and contemplating her own biases. She was still harboring anger about her parents’ murder and she figured Tony would understand that at least objectively, but why did the rest of the team hate him so much?

“Oh, and if you’re only here to pick Bucky’s brain just go. He has a psychologist to do that for him, he doesn’t need you too,” Tony says. Wanda’s eyebrows draw together, confused by Tony’s protective nature over Bucky but his mind didn’t indicate that he had any strong desire to protect him. Logic, he said, was his driving force and it seemed that he believed his own argument. She supposed the conclusion he had come to was, indeed, logical even if she couldn’t fathom why Tony would show such empathy to his parents’ killer.

“I told you, I’m not protecting Bucky. I’m simply stating what should be obvious to everyone here- poking around in some guy’s brain when he’s been stripped of said brain is a shitty thing to do. That doesn’t mean I hate him any less, and it doesn’t mean I wouldn’t get an unholy amount of joy from sticking him through a fucking meat grinder. You get it, you don’t like me much but here you are, having a civil conversation with me,” he points out. His tone is flat, matter-of-fact. She wouldn’t have needed the corresponding brain waves to tell her that he believed what he was saying.

*

Bucky stands in his doorway for a moment, unsure what he was supposed to do here. What did people do when they got home? He didn’t have a job, friends, hobbies, or anything else to take up his time, he wasn’t meant to have any of those things. So he stands there for an immeasurable amount of time before he hears the elevator bell ring and he turns to face it. He expects Tony because to his knowledge that’s the only person who would visit. Or wait, no, could be Steve…

But when the door opens a small brunette woman is there looking at him. He has to think for a moment before he remembers the red energy that sometimes outlined her hands and the things that she concentrated on. Right, she was superpowered. He wondered if she would be able to handle him if he lost it and he hopes to, she’s young.

“I could, handle you I mean. I am telepathic; I wouldn’t even need to be in the same room as you to kill you, or the same floor even. I can locate you using our mind and tear you apart from there- not that I would,” she tacks on to the end. She looks worried, pale. Why?

“Good,” he says softly. Someone, at least, wouldn’t get hurt if something went wrong, if the Soldier… He shuts the thought out of his mind because he doesn’t want to think about it.

The woman blinks for a moment, “what?” she asks somewhat dumbly.

“I said ‘good’. I’m dangerous and I’m glad I can’t hurt you.” It was comforting, knowing that he couldn’t hurt her.

“I… you’re not afraid,” she says more than asks though Bucky was sure that should have been a question.

“No. Should I be?” he asks, tilting his head to the side quizzically.

The woman laughs softly, “probably. I’m Wanda, by the way. I don’t think we were ever formally introduced,” she tells him.

“Bucky,” he says, “and no, we weren’t introduced. So um… why are you here?” he asks. It occurs to him that that might be rude but he isn’t completely clear on social rules right now so maybe he’s wrong.

“I know who you are, I’ve heard the stories. And I’m here because I thought maybe you could use the company,” she says, not taking any offense to his statement thankfully.

“Well I don’t think I’ll be anything like the stories…” he mumbles, looking away.

“Great, then we can make some new stories. Have you eaten yet?”

*

Wanda considers Bucky all the way back home, or what was currently passing as home. The Accords ended in a legal mess that left them all… lost. Legally they were all currently sitting in a grey area but that didn’t mean anyone was fond of pushing the boundaries minus Spiderman, whoever that was.

Bucky, though, was broken worse than Tony but his mind wasn’t a mess in the same way. Tony’s mind was a bunch of sharp, jagged thoughts that cut across her own psyche, Bucky’s mind is a bunch of mush. It was sad and she was following Tony’s advice to keep that to herself in part because he is right about her gleaning information off of Bucky being insensitive but also because she had no idea what she actually saw. She’s never seen a mind like that and truthfully she hoped she never did again.

Steve is waiting for her at the door to the small house they were currently all jammed in, a product of being shipped back out of Wakanda when they were sure they weren’t going to jail. T’Challa had to worry about his country and harboring criminals didn’t look good for him politically. “How is he?” Steve asks, worry permeating his mind, body language, and tone of voice.

“All things considered he is fine,” Wanda lies smoothly. In the background she notes Natasha watching her like a cat watches a mouse, her mind closed off to Wanda’s power. She could push and get in easily of course, but she wouldn’t.

Steve lets out a relieved breath, drawing his attention back to her. “Thank god. How did therapy go?” he asks. She hadn’t even brought the subject up, figuring Bucky wouldn’t appreciate it. All she had done was cook for him and leave really, there was almost no talking and his mind consisted of a large amount of anxiety and lack of knowledge as to how to act.

“Fine as far as I know,” she says, “he seems to be adjusting well all things considered.” He wasn’t adjusting at all, he didn’t know how but she wasn’t going to tell Steve that. Bucky’s mental state is Bucky’s own business. Steve peppers her with a few more questions and she bluffs answers before she flees the scene, back to her small room.

“Liar,” someone accuses from her doorway. Natasha, Wanda recognized the flat static state of her mind. Theoretically it could have been Clint but his mind was lighter than Natasha’s considerably heavier psyche.

“What do you mean?” she asks without turning around.

“You just bullshitted your way through Steve’s questions. Why?” she asks, venturing further into the room.

“Because I never should have agreed to spy on Bucky in the first place, it’s cruel to spend time with him under false pretenses and it won’t do anything for his very likely trust issues,” she says.

Natasha raises a nicely shaped red brow that Wanda was jealous of. Only Steve had eyebrows that could compete for prettiness. “What led you to this moral epiphany?” she asks.

“Tony. To be honest I would not have thought he would have any insight into Bucky’s mind but… his arguments were sound.” And harsh, but Natasha didn’t need the dirty details, especially when she likely got quite a few from Stark herself. She had come home licking her wounds only a few days ago after Tony had lit into her.

“I’m not certain Tony Stark is the best source for moral advice,” Natasha says.

“And we are? I joined a terrorist organization to get revenge on a man that, ultimately, did not have much to do with my parents’ murder. I hardly feel as if I have a place to judge his bad decisions.” Especially when she was almost certain, from the flashes from Tony’s mind, that she was the leading cause for one of his latest awful decisions. If it weren’t for that vision she implanted in his head would Ultron have ever happened? Tony wasn’t sure and she wasn’t sure she should be either. The thought has been niggling at the back of her mind for some time now, ever since Tony had a nightmare shortly after her moving in….


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for disassociation, a mention of child abuse, the beginnings of a panic attack, and some consent issues.

Bucky is useless, the Solider learns. He was weak, timid, and unresponsive to any sort of pressure at all. He would have been happy to let Bucky die but unfortunately for him his life depended on Bucky’s. If only they weren’t in the same body, then he could let feeble and useless Bucky go.

A week and a half at Stark’s, two visits from that Wanda woman, and absolutely no movement outside of therapy and being prodded out of bed by Wanda led to some serious boredom for the Solider. The last thing he wanted was to be cooped up in this hell trap with a man who loathed him for killing his parents- and the Solider did _not_ understand that. The woman, maybe, but the man? He spent weeks watching Howard Stark looking for the perfect opportunity to strike and he found that he had a particular dislike towards the man. The Solider knew he was a monster but even _he_ would never abuse a child. As far as he was concerned he took out the trash. And Stark’s wife, well, casualties happened in his like of work.

Needless to say he wanted to stretch his legs and Bucky put up a good fight but ultimately they both knew which one of them was stronger. Interesting, though, that Bucky actually fought for something. The Solider would have to keep an eye on that; he didn’t want Bucky learning to off and erase him from existence, certainly not with the help of that pesky shrink. His fingers itched to take care of that problem but he was no fool, should he kill off the psychiatrist it would be almost too convenient to blame him. He could use that to his advantage, he was trained to be good at cleanup, but he doesn’t. Bucky would act like he had a place to judge and then he’d just fight harder against him and the Soldier was bored with warring it out with Bucky.

Still, someone had to make sure Bucky didn’t whither away so he guessed he was the one who was left with the task. He didn’t like it much but if Bucky died so did he, so he gets up out of bed and pads his way into the kitchen. Rooting through the food in the fridge that Bucky had barely touched. It’s all good stuff too, expensive. He couldn’t believe Bucky was such an ungrateful ass, not eating any of this stuff. Whatever. He pulls a bunch of stuff out of the fridge and starts planning meals, hunting down pots and pans.

He hums while he cooks, stirring vegetables together and adding the appropriate amounts of spice to things. Cooking wasn’t something he enjoyed at all, but it was a necessary evil if he wanted to get rid of that knowing feeling in his gut. Fucking Bucky, couldn’t even throw a few veggies in a pan and fry them for himself. Wanda fed him a few times and Stark sent a few meals, awfully nice for a man who hated him, but Bucky didn’t bother doing anything for himself. He couldn’t even figure out how to put _socks_ on most mornings. Bucky, unlike the Solider, was completely reliant on orders not that he liked fulfilling them.

All that time with HYDRA and he needed the utmost amount of directions to function and he hated following the orders anyways. The Soldier didn’t mind- most of the people he killed deserved it anyways and those that didn’t were probably guilty of something. Everyone has done something they deserved to die for except most children but they just needed time. Bucky didn’t like that he’s done a lot of things he deserved to die for but the Soldier didn’t understand. He was a killer long before HYDRA and yet it was the things he did as the Winter Soldier that kept him awake at night. Why the lives of the people he killed while he was the Soldier mattered more than those he killed as an army man the Soldier didn’t know.

Those people, those Bucky killed during the war, they had families, friends, pets, others who loved them and needed them same as those he killed as the Soldier. If Bucky thought those people were any more or less innocent than the latter half of his kill list he was deluded. Take Stark- the man was abhorrent at best. Sure, he had a family, friends, a company, people who loved him. But the man was selfish and squandered it- he abused his supportive and loving wife, hurt his own child. People like that didn’t deserve the air they breathed and he refused to feel Bucky’s guilt over killing the man. So the younger Stark was upset about it, he’d get over it eventually. Well, maybe not his mother. That he did feel a small amount of guilt for, Maria protected her son the best she could knowing that if she left Howard would destroy her.

Plus she was witty and sarcastic in a way that was so polite people didn’t realize they had been insulted until the next day. The Soldier appreciated intelligence like that but he wasn’t about to leave witnesses. Appreciating Maria Stark didn’t mean he could go about leaving loose ends for people to find. Making sure those damn police reports didn’t reflect anything out of the ordinary had been difficult enough and then there was all that crap with the new Winter Soldiers. And Bucky thought _he_ was a brute. He was a kitten compared to those people. Absolutely useless, the lot of them, they were barely under control! Bunch of idiots, HYDRA was, for creating them. He was good enough, he didn’t see why they even _needed_ more.

“Mr. Barnes,” that damned AI, FRIDAY Tony called it, says. He glares at the ceiling in response, refusing to acknowledge the strange device or program or whatever it was. “Steve Rogers is here to see you, if you want,” the AI says.

“Do I even get a choice?” he mumbles more to himself than the AI.

“Of course. Tony requested your permission before he let the Captain in,” FRIDAY informs him. Bucky reacts strongly to that, hitting the edges of his own mind and causing the Soldier to blink. Neither one of them knew what to make of _choice_. That was something they weren’t allowed to have, not over things like this. They interacted with whomever was necessary. For the first time since his escape from HYDRA the Soldier freezes the way Bucky did when he was confronted with a situation he didn’t understand.

*

“How is he doing?” T’Challa asks over the video call. Not Tony’s favorite method of communication but T’Challa was insistent that he check in on Barnes.

“Honestly I have no idea,” Tony says, “FRIDAY hasn’t reported anything noteworthy about his movements and obviously his therapist can’t tell me much. From what I gather he isn’t really doing a whole lot of anything except sleeping but this morning he started cooking so I guess that’s an improvement?” Tony is suspicious of the sudden change- people didn’t go from not being able to get up in the morning to cooking with zero apparent difficulty. The last week and a half and a few conversations with that therapist has taught him that Bucky was pretty fucked up. He didn’t get any details, but he was advised to give Bucky choice, but not so much that he was overwhelmed. Yes or no things were advised, or a choice between two things.

Tony figured that was like… normal so he figured he had this. He so did not have this, he couldn’t even figure out his own mind let alone Bucky’s and he didn’t even _want_ to figure Bucky out. He just got the guy dumped in his lap because Steve didn’t trust him at all but he trusted him more than everyone else, apparently. Ohh, what an upgrade.

T’Challa frowns and the movement draws Tony’s attention back to the conversation, “that is sudden. Has he done anything else lately?” he asks.

“Nah. Wanda managed to poke him into the shower the other day, thank god. There’s only so much FRIDAY can do about the smell, you know? I mean if I could get her to hose him down I would but I can’t so. But yeah, I thought this was sudden too but I don’t know if this is a pattern or something yet and you kept him frozen when you had him so it isn’t like I can learn anything from you. I figure the best course of action is to see how he acts later on to see if this is something that happens regularly or not,” he says.

The therapist had also advised against FRIDAY tracking Bucky’s movements but he was _not_ giving that up, plus FRIDAY watched everyone. She wasn’t the policing system Therapy Lady was worried about, she was there as an interactive interface for Tony. The fact that she watched all was a tertiary function or even lower on her priority list. And Bucky knew that, he’s definitely seen Wanda talk to FRIDAY, and Tony. He clearly wasn’t stupid given that he managed to hide for three years without getting caught, he could figure out FRIDAY wasn’t the boogyman or whatever.

“He is not keeping up on personal hygiene?” T’Challa asks, frowning in worry.

“Dude was brainwashed and used as a weapon for seventy years, I figure he’s earned a little extra sleep. Besides, that’s fucking depressing, it’s not much of a surprise that he’s depressed. He’s in therapy though so his issues will eventually be sorted out,” he says with far more confidence than he felt. It made him nervous, Bucky’s inactivity. That would change at some point and he wasn’t sure what he was going to do when that happened. But the sooner Bucky was fixed, or at least functional, the sooner he could get him the hell out of his Tower and back to Steve.

“How often is he going to therapy?” T’Challa asks.

“Twice a week but he probably needs more than that. I don’t know if jumping in that fast is a good idea though so I figured I’d let him adjust,” Tony says. God knew what he was feeling right about now and Tony didn’t have much of an interest in finding out. But he also figured that throwing the guy in an institution was probably a bad idea. That had been Idea One back when they were all squabbling about the Accords but in hindsight he could see why that would be a bad idea, dropping a brainwashed super solider in an institution. There was a lot there that could go wrong if Bucky reacted badly to any place that resembled a HYDRA base. As it was Tony had no idea if Bucky was reacting badly now and he wasn’t too keen on having a conversation with the guy to find out. He had his own problems to deal with.

T’Challa nods in agreement, “that is probably for the best. How is Rhodey doing?” he asks.

Tony sighs, rubbing his temples. “Technically? Fine. Mentally? Probably not so fine but he’s not exactly the talk about it type. He’s having a bit of trouble adjusting.” Physically Rhodey was doing fine, his physical therapy was going well, he adjusted to his new position in a wheel chair just fine, and he was pretty much self sufficient. It was the rest of him that was having a hard time catching up and Rhodey was in a state of denial that any problem at all existed.

“Give him time. He will come to you eventually,” T’Challa tells him.

“Yeah, I hope so,” he mumbles. He’s worried about Rhodey, worried about how he’s going to adjust or not adjust to his newfound mental hang-ups. Tony more than most knew what it was like to be mentally fucked up with no idea what was happening but he didn’t want to push Rhodey either. Pepper pushed him and it worked completely against her and… well now they were split and as much as he didn’t want to admit it maybe it was for the best. She wanted nothing to do with Iron Man, Tony couldn’t give it up, and he kept putting her in danger with it anyways. Maybe it was best that she go, even if he didn’t want her to.

“He will figure it out, Tony. You’re a good friend and a good man. Are _you_ okay?” T’Challa asks, raising an eyebrow. God, the man was perceptive.

“I’m fine,” Tony says, functioning on instinct.

“Then why are the circles under your eyes so dark?” T’Challa asks. Right, because T’Challa could see _everything_ with those enhanced eyeballs.

“New project,” Tony half lies. Technically he _did_ have a new project- accessibility for Rhodey and everyone else who needed it- but his sleeping schedule was interrupted by the possibility that one Bucky Barnes might kill him in his sleep. FRIDAY did her best to reassure him but he wasn’t totally convinced that Bucky couldn’t somehow disable her if he felt like it. And he was _in_ the Tower; half the damn work in getting to him to kill Tony was already done. He couldn’t exactly tell anyone about it either, Rhodey has his own shit and Pepper had asked for space so he was giving it to her. Unless she made contact he didn’t contact her and it was always business anyways. Some days he missed her running her hands through his hair, well, most days.

T’Challa doesn’t look like he believes him so Tony changes the subject, asking about Shuri. She was pouring her grief into punching bags according to T’Challa and they agreed that was better than a lot of the alternatives, including T’Challa’s own reaction. Eventually T’Challa has to leave to go deal with king things so Tony waves him off, cutting off the video feed. When FRIDAY alerts him to another notification he’s ready to make a joke about T’Challa missing him an awful lot to call him back in literally two seconds but the notification isn’t from him.

Steve. Tony sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose, “hey Cap, what’s up?” he asks, staring at his screen, which revealed Steve at the entrance to the Tower lingering until he was let in.

“Hey, I’m here to see Bucky,” Steve says. Yeah, Tony fucking knew that, Steve obviously wasn’t here for his company.

“Just give me a second and I’ll ask him about it,” Tony says, wheeling back from his desk a bit, “FRIDAY?” he prompts.

“Of course, sir,” the AI says and presumably alerts Bucky to Steve’s presence.

“What? Just let me in, of course he wants to see me,” Steve says, frowning.

“Look, I’ve been advised to give him choice and stuff from the mental health professionals, I’m sure he wants to see you too. I’m just making sure he’s alright with it.” Truthfully he had no idea how Bucky felt, he wasn’t even sure Bucky knew how Bucky felt with all that lying around in bed for nearly a week straight.

“Tony, this is ridiculous, just-” Steve starts but FRIDAY cuts him off.

“Request denied,” she says.

“Wait, _what_? That can’t be right, let me in,” Steve says, taking a step forward.

If Tony said he didn’t take an unholy amount of glee in shutting Steve out from seeing his best friend he’d be lying. “Sorry Cap, no can do. He said no so you’re not going anywhere,” he says, _just_ keeping his smug tone from his voice.

“Tony,” Steve starts, sounding just a little desperate but Tony cuts him off.

“He said no, I’m not going to let you in anyways, what the hell kind of message will that send? I can’t ask for his permission and then just ignore it, that’s a shitty thing to do in general let alone to someone who’s been through what Bucky has. Come back later or something, maybe he’s like… I don’t know, taking a giant shit. We’ve all had those moments when we’re dropping a monster turd that we don’t want to expose people to. Maybe he’s sparing you,” Tony says, comforting Steve for some stupid reason. He isn’t even good at it, he should leave comfort to the experts who probably don’t make up weird crap stories.

Steve makes a face, “ _what_?”

“Fine, Mr. Perfect hasn’t even had a monster turd moment, whatever. He said no, come back when he wants you here. Maybe come with Wanda, he seems to like her. Or tolerate her, I don’t really think he likes things right now but anyways, off you go,” he says, making a shooing motion at the Steve. He tries to argue but Tony refuses to give in and when Steve finally walks off Tony grins wide, getting a shocking dose of happiness from making Steve suffer just a little.

*

“Sir,” FRIDAY says sometime later, “Barnes is requesting to see you,” she tells him.

“I- what?” Tony asks, snapping up from his position hunched over some designs.

“I have not given him access, he is simply requesting access,” FRIDAY assures, “may I let him in?”

Tony’s heart speeds up and his heart kind of hurts as his vision spots a little but this time he remembers to breath. “Sir,” FRIDAY reminds him.

“I know, I know. Just… no, do _not_ let him up here. Tell him I’ll go to him,” he says.

“Sir, your heart rate-“ FRIDAY starts.

“I know, FRIDAY, just give me a minute.”

*

Bucky waits patiently while Tony descends to his level via elevator. His space smells like food but he doesn’t remember cooking anything. And he wasn’t hungry anymore either. Something niggles at the back of his mind but he ignores it, afraid of what he might find. He _swears_ he hears the Soldier laugh at him.

Tony steps out of the elevator cautiously; eyes wide until he spots Bucky and he seems to relax marginally. “You didn’t let him in,” he says in way of an actual conversation starter. He didn’t even know _how_ to start a conversation.

“You didn’t want him here, why would I let him in?” Tony asks, thankfully following Bucky’s logic.

“He’s Captain America,” Bucky says in a tone that suggests that was that, people couldn’t just say _no_ to Captain America.

“So? Doesn’t mean you have to do whatever he wants. If you don’t want to see him FRIDAY will tell him to get lost. If you do she’ll let him in,” Tony tells him.

“Wait, I don’t have to go through you?” Bucky asks, frowning.

“No? I’m not your keeper, you just live here and I also happen to live here. You can make your own decisions. You don’t want a visitor tell FRIDAY to tell them to bugger off and she won’t let them in,” Tony says. He says that like it’s obvious, like Bucky could just _do_ that and no one would care.

“What… what about Wanda?” Bucky asks.

“Her too. Don’t want them here tell FRIDAY and she won’t let them in… did you like… not know that?” Tony asks, frowning at him.

He looks down, “no,” he admits quietly.

Tony is silent for a long moment before he speaks again. “If you don’t want something say so, if that person doesn’t listen run like hell. People who care respect your boundaries,” Tony tells him. He thinks the advice is supposed to be helpful but he didn’t even know he _had_ boundaries.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for disassociation and a little bit of consent issues (this one is more to be cautious). If something needs to be added let me know!

Tony gets advice from Bucky’s shrink to see a shrink but he’s skeptical at best. Of course she would tell him to get a shrink, more money for her if he chose her. Which would be obvious because she’s working with Bucky and if she can deal with his kind of crazy she could probably deal with all sorts of crazy. The last thing he needed was therapy though, he was just fine on his own and he would continue being just fine on his own.

Rhodey, however, gives him a skeptical look. “Look man, normally I would agree, you know how I feel about the mental health thing. But maybe she has a point. I’ve seen some shit in the field but I’ve never seen anything that even compares to you. Seriously, people in war zones are less traumatized than you most days. That’s pretty significant,” Rhodey tells him, wearing that ‘concerned for Tony’ face. He’s half tempted to hunt Bucky down for the better company considering he did nothing but stare at the walls under his blankets. He should probably be worried about it but he relayed the information to the therapist. He did his good deed and considering the image of Barnes choking out his mother would be burnt into his mind for the rest of his life he felt that that was a particularly nice thing to do.

“I don’t need therapy,” he mumbles at Rhodey, “how do you think these designs will function for you?” he asks, shifting his StarkPad over to Rhodey so he could look at what Tony had designed in the way of accessibility features.

“Dude, I’ve seen you freak out so bad you can’t breath like five times in less than a week and I’ve only seen you twice. That’s a problem, man, and you should get it checked out,” he says.

“I don’t need meds, and I’m not going to talk about my feelings with someone who’s going to tell me I have daddy issues like I don’t already know that,” he says dismissively. He knew he was fucked up, he didn’t exactly need conformation and the last time he talked to someone about his problems Bruce fell asleep. The message was pretty damn clear and he was never going to do that again. Besides, all things considered he didn’t have much to complain about. He’s good looking, rich, a superhero, what else could a guy want?

_Stable relationships and a little love_ his mind tells him, betraying him greatly. But he has plenty of love from Rhodey, even if it was a little unfair to expect Rhodey to be his only friend. What else was he supposed to do though?

“Tony-” Rhodey starts but Tony cuts him off.

“The features, how are they? Need work, passable, absolutely terrible, what am I looking at?” he asks. The subject change is harsh and terribly thought out but in his defense he really did need to know how the features would work out so he could make sure that Rhodey could get around.

*

Bucky tries to fight but the Solider got a small taste of freedom and he was _constantly_ pressing at the inside of Bucky’s skull now, begging to be let out.

_I don’t beg, only the weak beg_ the Soldier tells him. Bucky has no idea what kind of nuts this made him but he isn’t about to tell his therapist about this. She already thought he was fucked up enough; he didn’t need to add to her probably growing list of pathologies.

“Shut up,” Bucky mumbles out loud, curling tighter under his blankets and gritting his teeth together harshly.

_Talking to yourself, wonder what your therapist would make of that_ the Solider tells him, his laugh bounding around in Bucky’s skull. The mocking sound taunts him, reminding him of his precarious mental state more than he would like. _Come on, let me out, I hardly did anything dangerous last time unless you consider massacring the veggies_.

“That was one time,” Bucky mumbles, pressing his blankets closer to his skull and willing the Solider to go away.

_God, it’s every time. Let me_ out _, Bucky!_

_Every_ time? How many times was _every_ time? How often does this happen? When did he loose control over his own damn mind?

The Solider laughs _oh, it’s cute that you thought you had any control at all_. Bucky clutches his blankets closer and wills the Solider to shut up, to leave him alone, to… to…-

God, the Soldier hated dealing with Bucky. Whiney asshole, always complaining, always _me, me, me_. He didn’t care about the Soldier and his needs, it was all about _Bucky_ and what _Bucky_ needed and _Bucky’s_ mind as if the Soldier didn’t live there too. The sooner Bucky stopped trying to deny his existence the sooner he could be free to live his life. So that meant Bucky didn’t have one- it wasn’t exactly like he was using his life for anything but staring at that fucking cream wall of his. Was it really a loss of life of Bucky wasn’t even _using_ it? They had a pretty face, it would be a shame to waste it on Bucky’s wallowing in his own self-pity.

He didn’t understand Bucky’s senseless guilt over his involvement in killing all those people. They hardly had a choice and even the Solider wasn’t fond of the chair. It made his brain feel like pudding and his vision was spotty and blurry afterwards. Bucky retreated entirely during those times, leaving him to deal with everything just like always and then he felt bad for _himself_. He didn’t even know the worst of it because the Soldier was nice enough to keep that from him and yet he thought the Solider was _bad_. Maybe he should unleash all of Bucky’s worst memories on him just to see how horrible things _really_ were. Maybe then Bucky would finally retreat forever instead of sometimes.

But he doesn’t because even _he_ didn’t think anyone deserved the wounds he had except the pieces of shit that did this to him. Every once and awhile when Bucky was particularly bad he’d try and hunt a few of them down. Zemo managed to get to the one that he had been tracking for some time when he got control but most unfortunately Zemo killed him and then used the book to turn him back into a weapon. If he weren’t currently in a prison that would be difficult to leave trace evidence in he would have gone and killed him long ago. Bucky hadn’t even thought _that_ far ahead when Steve asked him to break into the RAFT. Idiot thought Rogers was giving him an order when he wasn’t but the Soldier would have complied too. He’s seen how Steve acts when he thinks he’s about to lose Bucky, specifically with Stark.

The last thing he’d want is for Rogers to realize his precious Bucky wasn’t there, that he never would be, lest he react like that towards _him_. He wasn’t prepared to die or get hurt trying to defend his own life because some blonde creep in a spangley suit was obsessed with him. The guy spent _years_ trying to track Bucky down but Bucky couldn’t handle the idea of a friend so the Soldier made sure that he stayed far away, hiding them when needed. Of course Bucky was an ungrateful _ass_ about the whole thing, whining and crying about not knowing how he got there and having missing memories. Idiot, did he not know a favor when he saw one?

Regardless of Rogers, Bucky, or even Stark given his presence in this whole mess of a situation, the Soldier intended on doing something for himself. It’s been a long time since he’s had some time that he could spend all on him in between HYDRA goons, Rogers, more HYDRA goons, Zemo, and then Stark. It was high time he had a little fun.

Still, when he gets to the elevator he pauses. _I’m not your keeper_ rings through his head but he wonders how much Stark means of that. Because whether or not Stark was going to admit it he _was_ Bucky’s keeper and by extension the Solider’s keeper- that’s what Rogers expected out of him, right? So he was unsure of how Stark might react to his leaving, but maybe it wouldn’t matter if he came back, it probably wouldn’t…-

_Don’t you dare!_ Bucky all but shouts at him.

“God, shut up, why does everything have to be about you and your wants and needs?” he snarls. “Selfish asshole.”

I’m _selfish? You_ kill _people!_ Bucky tells him and oh, he just _loved_ to throw that in the Soldier’s face.

“As of you weren’t a murderer before I came around, or do you not count all those throats you slit in the war? Do they not count because you don’t have someone else to blame it on? Or do you blame war for that? Guess what buddy, murder is murder no matter the circumstance. Those soldiers were the same as you, thinking they were fighting to good fight, it doesn’t matter what terribly things you thought they were doing. You’ve done terrible things too, so don’t you act like you’re better than any of us,” he snaps, aware that he looked stupid speaking to himself but who was around to see? Stark’s AI? FRIDAY was mostly disinterested in his habits and he doubted she did much but report back to Stark, who was rather disinterested in his charge.

Bucky, thankfully, retreats after the Soldier’s tirade and he’s thankful for it. He so loathed when Bucky put up a fight because there was no need for it, nor was there any need to act like he was the only one inhabiting this body. It was only fair that they got to share; Bucky didn’t even know how much he _needed_ the Soldier when he acted like he wanted him gone. Fool, thinking he could handle all of his traumas on his own. If he couldn’t handle it when it was happening he couldn’t handle it now, so the Soldier kept it to himself.

He stabs at the elevator button with his finger and waits, bouncing on the balls of his feet in skeptical anticipation. Worse comes to worst, he tells himself, Stark will just shoo him back into his space and honestly it wasn’t a bad prison cell. It was large, spacious, and FRIDAY kept it warmer than strictly necessary once she noticed Bucky shivering. The elevator opens and he steps in, ignoring the stupid tight feeling in his chest as the doors close and he begins to descend. No one tries to stop him, no one tries to shoo him back up to his room, no one even looks at him twice so the Soldier melts away to see what he can get up to.

For a little while he simply wanders, looking around and blending into the crowd but then the crowd thins as it grows darker and this was more the Soldier’s style. Moving around in the dark, covert and covered by the blanket of blackness over the sky. This is how he prefers to operate. The daytime was for weak and scared Bucky who is afraid of the unknown, the night was for the Soldier, who might be afraid but he didn’t care. Let whatever was out there come to him; let them see what kind of monster they tried to take on thinking they were the scariest thing that walked the streets after dark.

Eventually he runs into a dive bar, the kind where things looked rough and dangerous and he grins. Well, he wanted a little excitement, might as well go looking for it. Something, Bucky, niggles at the back of his mind, worried about charges. But laws were never meant to control the Soldier, that was why he was created after all. To work in the dark, surreptitious in nature, outside normal forces like laws and regulations. And besides, who didn’t break the law every once and while. He slides into a seat at the bar, far away from the rest of the patrons for the most part so he could observe a little.

He doesn’t exactly expect a small blonde to slide up next to him but she gives him a saucy grin and, well, he’s only human.

*

Wanda lingers for a moment outside the door, waiting for Stark to let her in. “Look, Bucky isn’t here so you might as well go home again,” he tells her, his voice filtering out of a speaker. There is a camera pointed at her so she knows he can see her but she can’t see him. His mind, however, tells her that he isn’t lying. He’s too exhausted to lie to anyone.

“What do you mean Bucky isn’t here? Where is he?” she asks. He couldn’t possibly think that letting Bucky loose was a good idea… right?

“I don’t know, what do I look like? His jailor? He can do whatever he wants, if that means leaving to go do whatever than who cares,” Tony says over the speaker system, sounding irritated.

“You can’t just let him roam around, you have no idea what he’ll do!” Wanda says, staring at the camera so Stark got a good view of how dumb she thought this was.

“You know what, if you’re going to have a conversation with me then come in. If not then just go and come back and ask Bucky if he wants to let you in or whatever,” he tells her. She can feel the irritation bounding around his thoughts but she doesn’t delve any deeper into that even if she’d like to.

“Fine, let me in,” she tells him. She half expects him to keep her out like he did with Steve but the door clicks as the lock slides back and she opens it, “thanks,” she mumbles and she lets herself in.

She locates Stark easily, following the buzzing in his head. His mind was always so much louder than the others, sometimes it would keep her awake at night with the sound and that only served to annoy her more. He couldn’t help it, she knew, but she disliked loosing sleep due to someone else thinking loud enough to project it so far outwards.

Tony looks up from his paperwork, flicking a glance over to Rhodey, who is perched on the couch with the abandoned chair beside the furniture watching some reality show. “Don’t judge me, I like trash television and I know it’s shit. Doesn’t meant I don’t love it,” he tells her. His words ring true and they even have a tinge of embarrassment that went along with being busted in a guilty pleasure.

“Alright…” Wanda says slowly, “but you. You can’t just let Bucky leave, what is he even doing? Did you think to ask? What if he gets into trouble?” she asks. Surely he could see how irresponsible this was, did he even _have_ a way to contact Bucky?

Something tickles the surface of his mind but she doesn’t get enough to indicate what, exactly, resonated with him. “What exactly do you propose I do with Bucky, then? Keep him locked up in the Tower for his own protection? I did that with you and you threw cars at me. I learned my lesson, unless, of course, you only care when it’s _your_ autonomy that’s being infringed upon. I don’t care what Bucky does, why should I? It isn’t my business. But I should give him a phone for emergencies.” He mumbles that last bit more to himself than her, turning his gaze back down to his paperwork with a frown.

Wanda bites her lip at the comment though because she hadn’t thought of it like Tony had. “But he’s been brainwashed, and his case is very high profile and you don’t know who might recognize him. What if someone attacks him and he defends himself? He’d be within his rights to but that would look bad,” she reasons.

Tony looks back up from his paperwork and holds eye contact with her, something that was rare for him. He tended to fidget too much, looking everywhere but at the person he was talking to though he’d look back to them frequently. His thoughts told her this was completely unconscious. “That’s the exact same line of reasoning I used in your case. High profile case, easily recognizable, could get attacked and would be one hundred percent right to defend yourself. But you were right, locking you in your room, especially without your consent, was a fucking stupid thing to do. So I’m not repeating that mistake again because I know full well the last time I pulled a stunt like that it went badly, as it should have. I’ll give Bucky a phone later so he can at least keep in touch when he’s out.”

He looks back to his paperwork, breaking eye contact and scribbling a note. A flash of anger erupts and for a moment she isn’t sure where it’s coming from because Tony was already thinking through designs for Bucky’s phone. Why he needed a different design than whatever generic looked like for Tony she had no clue. She eventually locates the anger to Rhodey though, catching his glare over the back of the couch. He shakes his head at her and turns back to the television.

_…. Always fine if it isn’t Tony… hypocrites… can’t believe…._

The snippets of Rhodey’s thoughts aren’t meant to be thought loud enough for her to hear them but he was irritated enough that his thought process was loud and almost clear. “Do you have a problem?” she asks, tilting her head to the side.

Rhodey whips around, apparently knowing that she was talking to him. “Actually yeah, I do-” he starts but Tony cuts him off.

“Rhodey, just leave it-” Rhodey cuts him off before he gets too far.

“No Tones, I am sick of this. I get better than anyone that you do stupid shit; I have been around for most of said stupid shit. I was around when you were at your worst and these people act like you doing your god damn best to not hurt people, to do good, is a problem or something. Yeah, you’ve gone about that in some shitty ways but you _learned_ , you _always_ learn. Even if before this whole hero thing you might have done the stupid thing like five times but you figured it out. But these days it’s pretty much a one off mistake and I am tired of these people punishing you for being human. Especially when they do all the same shit- case and point with Wanda wanting to stick Bucky in his room when she hated being in hers enough to throw _vehicles_ at us and bitch at Clint that he wasn’t trying hard enough to kill us.” Rhodey finishes his rant with an eye roll and tossed hand into the air, clearly irritated.

“I screw up admittedly more than most,” Tony says in what Wanda _thinks_ is her defense.

“No, when you screw up the consequences tend to be bigger. You screw up as much as everyone else and you shouldn’t be punished because you happen to have the worst luck as far as the results of those screw-ups go. Plus people only ever acknowledge _your_ part in the screw-ups. Case and point with Bruce being half the reason the Ultron program was run, and that was only run because _you_ ,” Rhodey says, jabbing a finger in Wanda’s direction, “broke into his head and made him see his worst fears come to life. What the fuck did you expect out of a trauma victim, sunshine and puppies and shit? I get that it looks bad when you don’t get it, I’ve been on the misunderstanding side of things but damn, when something becomes so consistent you should probably Google the symptoms. Tony is like PTSD 101.”

Rhodey rolls his eyes again and he continues mumbling to himself, his mind a buzzing swarm of angry thoughts, some of them even lashing out a little at Wanda though unconsciously. She picks out a few images but the one that sticks in Rhodey bend beside Tony, who appeared to have labored breathing. _This looks bad_ he says to Tony and Tony looks hurt and confused by the statement. The image comes with a lot of shame for Rhodey, as well as a slew of images of pages, pamphlets, and people. Gathering information, Wanda realizes. Rhodey seemed to have noticed a pattern and decided to investigate, and he came to a conclusion too. Several, actually, but Rhodey doesn’t let those other thoughts get loud enough for her to hear them. An unconscious bid to protect Tony from her.

“I-” she starts though he has no clue where she is going with that statement.

“Look, don’t worry about it. Stick around to wait Bucky out or go, I don’t really care either way,” Tony says. His mind tells her that he’s lying, that he doesn’t really want her here at all but he’s willing to put up with her if she wanted to wait for Bucky. It was odd, the way he did this frequently. He seemed to be in a constant state of sacrificing his own comfort for that of others, though she noticed that people only noticed when he made room for his own feelings. It wasn’t often and the contradiction rubbed her the wrong way. She wants to ignore it but her ability to see his mind doesn’t allow her that.

“I’ll go,” she says softly, moving towards the elevator. She figured that she would make room for his feelings a little though Rhodey’s angry thought process informs her that she had no right to be there anyways, that Tony was being too nice.

That’s when she notices the extra mind though it takes her a few long seconds to detect that the mind was _Bucky’s_. “What?” Tony asks, apparently noticing her freezing.

“I… Bucky is back but something… something is off,” she murmurs. She doesn’t notice the way Tony’s body stiffens and the panic coming from his mind is quiet compared to the satisfied irritation from Bucky. She gets an image of some blonde that he seemed to have a fond appreciation for thought it was… detached? Maybe that wasn’t the best description, but something was off. The image is attached to that odd irritation mixed with satisfaction.

_… "get your number?"_

_… "not how it works, sweetheart."_

_… good, let her feel as empty and used as I do. Maybe she’ll learn a thing or two like I did_.

She snaps out of his mind and shudders, frowning because that was _not_ Bucky. She didn’t know how to explain it because by all means that was technically Bucky but… those thoughts weren’t his. He was too preoccupied with panic, despair, guilt; he didn’t think malicious thoughts like that.

“What are you hearing?” someone, Tony, asks. The question draws her attention back to him and she finally notices the shift in his body language, and Rhodey’s. Tony is on the edge of flight of fight and Rhodey is clearly worried, eyeing Tony like he was about to drag himself to Tony’s side if he needed to.

“I… I’m not sure,” she says honestly.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for disassociation and a mention of torture.
> 
> Alright, I finally managed to update this sucker! Though I do wish this story was better written, but it's too late to turn back now. Anyways, I hope you all enjoy it :)

Bucky sits awkwardly with Steve, picking at the food in front of him to avoid actually eating it. Steve was worried, he could tell, but he can’t manage to force himself to eat. “Is everything alright?” Steve asks earnestly and Bucky winces. He wants to say that no, he isn’t okay, he doesn’t know what he’s doing because there are no orders to follow in real life, no commands he had to obey, it was just… It was just him freefalling through empty space while people expected him to do things. He saw Wanda’s expectant looks, Stark’s impatience, and Steve’s wide-eyed worry that came with a hidden ‘tell me everything’ attachment to the action.

“M’okay,” he mumbles without looking up. He continues to push some food around on his plate to avoid looking at Steve and to avoid doing anything else. This, it seemed, was acceptable and he didn’t want to take the chances of trying something new if it wasn’t okay.

“Are you sure?” Steve asks gently, “you know you can talk to me right?” He reaches out and touches Bucky’s arm, his metal one, and Bucky jerks back without meaning to. Steve gives him that sad look that he got so much lately and Bucky clenches his jaw, irritated but unsure why. It happened a lot now, getting irritated over small things that didn’t seem to matter. Who cared that Steve kept giving him these expectant looks as if Bucky knew exactly what was going on in his own head, he probably thought that Bucky genuinely knew. So why did it annoy him so much? And why did laying around in bed annoy him when getting out of bed inspired what his therapist called ‘panic attacks’. It was like he couldn’t win and that just made him even more annoyed at this whole thing.

“Yeah, I know I can talk to you,” he lies but he knows that that’s what Steve wants to hear. It took him a long time but he learned to only say what people wanted to hear. His handlers didn’t like it when he said things that weren’t approved and… and he was told that Steve wasn’t like them but he wasn’t so sure. The man in front of him was nothing like the skinny kid from Brooklyn that Bucky remembered. The more time he spent with Steve the more he wondered if they were even the same person of if, like Bucky, Steve had been replaced with something else. Something… Bucky isn’t sure how to word it, even to himself. There was just something off about the way he remembered Steve and the way he was currently experiencing Steve.

“Then are you alright? You didn’t want to see me earlier this week, unless that was actually Tony being petty. So what’s wrong?” he asks. _There_ , right there, was the problem. The assumptions he made, even if they were reasonable, were… they were off. God, his brain was useless, it couldn’t even organize his own damn thoughts. There was nothing wrong with what Steve said exactly, they had been best friends before all of this drama and it was well known that Stark wasn’t fond of Steve, so Bucky wasn’t certain why Steve’s words don’t sit well.

Plus now he wasn’t sure what Steve wanted. Before he thought that Steve wanted him to be fine but now he was looking for answers that Bucky didn’t have. “I… don’t know. Stark hasn’t said anything about you though,” he says because he thinks that maybe Steve wants to hear that. And he hasn’t, aside from telling Bucky that he didn’t have to let anyone into his space. Stark didn’t seem to like him much but Bucky thinks that’s pretty fair considering that he killed his parents. Mostly he avoided Stark when possible but he made an effort to come down twice a week to shoo him out of bed for therapy.

Steve sits there patiently, listening to his words until it became apparent that he had none left. Something tells him that he should have said more but he didn’t know what else to say. “Well there has to have been a reason, it’s okay to tell me,” Steve says. “I guess at least it wasn’t Tony. I wasn’t really sure what he might or might not say to you.”

“I killed his parents, I’m pretty sure he doesn’t want to say anything to me if he could help it. I don’t even think he wants me there,” he says. Which begged the question of why Tony didn’t just kick him out. He told Bucky that he didn’t need to let people into his space if he didn’t want to but he let Bucky in when he clearly didn’t want to. Why would he have more regard for Bucky’s life than his own? That made no sense. “And I don’t have a reason. I just didn’t- want to see you I mean. I just… I… I don’t know,” he stutters out, irritated with his brain for not working like it should. He was sure that there was a real reason but he couldn’t put his finger on it let alone articulate it.

At the mention of killing Tony’s parents Steve winces, “that wasn’t really you, you know that,” Steve says gently. Except no, Bucky _didn’t_ know that because it _was_ him who killed Stark’s parents. Whatever the circumstances were he killed Tony’s parents and he felt like the guy had a right to not like him for it. _He_ didn’t like him for it. But he doesn’t tell Steve any of this because Steve will just insist he was wrong, blah, blah, and Bucky didn’t want to hear it. “And if there’s a problem with me you know you can tell me, I mean I _do_ know you better than anyone else,” Steve says ruefully, grinning.

Bucky thinks that’s true. Steve knew Bucky very well, but he was no longer Bucky. That was just what he called what was left of him because that was the option that he had as far as names went. The person Steve knew was no longer there and Bucky didn’t know how to tell Steve that so he continues stuttering his way through an incredibly awkward lunch. By the time he leaves he feels more discouraged than when he left his apartment.

*

He rides the elevator in near silence with a man in a wheelchair who keeps looking at him weird. He shrinks further into his corner of the elevator and tries to avoid eye contact. “FRIDAY, is Tony even home?” the man asks, causing Bucky to jump. This earns him another side eye but Bucky tries his best to ignore him.

“He will not be home for another hour, sir,” the AI informs him. Well, at least Bucky knew that his man obviously knew Tony well if he knew to talk to the AI and have the AI respond. Sometimes, Bucky noticed, FRIDAY didn’t speak even when people talked to her. Wanda, for example, didn’t seem to draw any response out of the AI and the way Tony talked about it the AI was supposed to respond to everyone who spoke to it.

The man in the wheelchair sighs, “well alright. So, Barnes, you have anything to do for the next hour?” the man asks. Bucky jumps again because he hadn’t prepared to be addressed, “damn, you’re a jumpy one. You want some company or nah?” he asks.

His options were slim, Bucky supposed, because he had planned to crawl back under his blankets and hide away again. Social convention told him that it was rude to hide under blankets when you had company over. But what did social convention tell him about accepting random invitations from strangers? _As if he’d last in a fight_ the Soldier thinks at him and Bucky shoves the thought away. A quick glance at the man told him he had a lot of strength all over, but particularly his upper body. His being in a wheel chair must be somewhat new to have that muscle tension in his legs still. Still, Bucky doubted he would go down without a fight and Bucky didn’t much want a fight anyways. _Maybe you’re right about that. He’s certainly stronger than_ you.

Bucky clenches his jaw and tries to shut out the Soldier’s words because he had no interest in hearing them. _You have no interest in anything but yourself and even then you squander it by hiding out in your blankets all day. Pathetic_. Bucky barely resists the urge to tell the Solider to shut up because his current companion wouldn’t understand what was happening. As it was he was raising an eyebrow at Bucky, clearly waiting for a response. “I’m not busy,” Bucky finally says, just in time for the elevator to ding. The door opens and Bucky resists the urge to rush out and back under his blankets. Instead he lets his companion go ahead of him and follows behind somewhat reluctantly.

“I’m James Rhodes, by the way, you seem pretty lost on who I am,” he says and he laughs, “man has it been a long time since someone had no idea who I was. Tony ensures that everyone knows who I am given how often I have to go save him from whatever nutty plan he came up with this time.” Oh, right, James Rhodes, Bucky knew about him. Sort of.

“Ha, another James,” Bucky says softly, smiling slightly. “But I know who you are now, you’re one of Tony’s good friends. You were at the airport.” He hadn’t been injured then, or maybe the suit somehow compensated for it. That would certainly be interesting.

“Yeah… I was there. But I go by Rhodey, James is too stuffy and I’ve always hated Jim and Jimmy. How the hell do you even get Jim out James? They aren’t even close,” Rhodey complains.

“Try finding the ‘Bucky’ in ‘Buchanan’,” Bucky says because that has perplexed him from day one. He’s pretty sure that he has been confused about that since before the whole Winter Soldier thing.

“That’s a pretty stupid nickname, no offense,” Rhodey says.

“Actually I agree. What kind of stupid name is _Bucky_? That’s what you would name like…” he trails off for a moment, trying to find a word. _A cartoon_ the Soldier offers. “Like a cartoon, and not a good one,” he says, adopting the Soldier’s words just this one time. “But I don’t really like Jim or Jimmy either. I’m not a forty-year-old man going bald and I’m not a dumb frat boy either. So I guess I’m stuck with ‘Bucky.” It doesn’t dawn on him that that was far more aligned to what the Soldier thought than what _he_ thought until the words were already out and he keeps his panic quiet. He didn’t _want_ to agree with the Soldier even if he was better with words than Bucky himself was. He disliked the Soldier for that- how come _he_ got the words and not Bucky?

 _Because I’m not a pathetic waste of time_ the Soldier offers and Bucky clenches his jaw again, willing himself not to tell the Soldier to stop his damn talking.

“I’ve always wondered, did you have buck teeth as a kid?” Rhodey asks, grinning wide.

“No.” Bucky says with a note of finality. “But Steve did,” he adds when Rhodey’s smile falters some.

“Really? That’s so weird. I can’t really imagine Captain America with buck teeth,” he says.

“That’s because he wasn’t Captain America then,” Bucky says with far more bitterness in his tone than he intended.

Rhodey tilts his head to the side, “you don’t sound happy about that, the Captain America thing,” he notes.

“I…” he wasn’t sure what to say, what Rhodey was looking for. But Rhodey looks open, curious even, about what Bucky was going to say. Something about the way he looks at Bucky is different than when Steve did it. Rhodey looked like he was waiting to hear an answer but Steve looked like he was waiting to hear a _specific_ answer. And oh, that’s what had been bothering him. His handlers did that too- looked at him like he’d better respond the way they wanted him to, but Steve only looked disappointed when Bucky deviated from his mystery script. His handlers… he stops the line of thought there and focuses on the situation at hand. Rhodey. “I guess I’m not. He isn’t the same.”

“Well, people change. He’s been through a lot you know, and you too. It’s pretty normal to be confused,” he says. Maybe he was confused… but he didn’t think so. He was confused when he was woke up in the morning with no clue what to do next- he outright disliked Steve. Wait, what? No, he didn’t dislike Steve he just… just…

 _Hate the guy? Total ass in my opinion_ the Soldier tells him. “Oh my god, shut up,” Bucky mumbles, earning a confused look from Rhodey. “Not you,” he clarifies, “um. But I don’t think I’m confused, I just… he keeps looking at me like he’s expecting something from me and I don’t know what it is and I don’t like it.” Not knowing what Steve was looking for meant more of those disappointed looks and Bucky was sick of failing when he didn’t know what he was doing to fail let alone how to stop it.

Rhodey remains quite for a moment before he takes a breath, “well, I’ve sort of been in his situation. Not nearly as traumatic for me or for Tones but when he got kidnapped- by terrorists for three months-” Rhodey adds, presumably for context, “he came back completely different. I kept… I don’t know, expecting him to be the guy I knew before. It was hard when I’d say something I knew would make him laugh only to get some blank stare back and for a long time I didn’t know how to handle it. Hell, I’m still a little lost on what to do because since then the crap has just kept piling in for him. It’s probably hard for Steve right now, not knowing who you are anymore. I’m sure you two will figure it out though,” Rhodey says, tacking on some encouragement to the end of that.

Bucky considers the words but… they fall flat for him. It wasn’t that Steve didn’t know who Bucky was, though that was part of it. His problem was that he didn’t know who Steve was anymore and he wasn’t sure he liked Steve’s strangely pushy replacement. The old Steve would have known he needed time and backed off just like he always did. This new and foreign Steve seemed intent on making sure he was in places Bucky didn’t think he wanted him in.

*

The Soldier appreciated his freedom thanks to Bucky finally drifting off to sleep. He wondered if Bucky would ever realize that drowsiness on his behalf made his mental defenses weak. Well, not that it mattered considering the Soldier wasn’t about to inform him of that. Then the idiot would off and try and stay awake for stupid amounts of time and that just wouldn’t do.

Instead of dwelling on Bucky, though, the Soldier decides to stretch his legs since Bucky refused to do it for him. All that time he spent out with Steve and he barely even _did_ anything. No wonder Steve looked so expectant though the Soldier couldn’t say he was fond. He liked to tell Bucky he could talk to him but when Bucky told him things he didn’t like Steve tried to tell him what to think. Oh no, it wasn’t Bucky who killed Stark’s parents; apparently it was some mythical fairy with a face that looked a hell of a lot like one Bucky Barnes’! Of course it was Bucky that killed Stark’s parents, well, _him_ but they shared a body so for all intents and purposes it was Bucky. Steve’s prattling on about what _he_ believed instead of actually listening to Bucky irritated the Soldier even if he recognized it came from a place of compassion.

And this was why he didn’t deal with messy emotions like that. Things were a lot easier when you didn’t care about anything but yourself. Stark had it right before things got all messed up with his superheroing. So maybe he was a callus jerk- if he was anything like the Soldier that was exactly what he told people they were going to get. Nothing wrong with only looking out for yourself, if you don’t do it who will? Bucky had Steve but Steve seemed more interested in protecting what he thought was there rather than what was actually there. Then he had the gall to pretend _that_ was caring. If he really cared he’d keep his own stupid feelings to himself to deal with Bucky’s ridiculously large mountain of emotions. But no, here he was pretending like he gave two shits about Bucky when the person he really cared about was a dead man left behind in the snowy mountains where HYDRA left him.

At least Bucky wasn’t so stupid that he didn’t see it. The Soldier could be thankful for small blessings given that he had less than zero interest in suffering through another bland lunch starring Steve Rogers spending more time explaining that Bucky could tell him anything than actually listening to Bucky telling him things. No thanks; he had better things to do. He wasn’t sure what they were yet but he’d figure something out.

The last thing he expects is to smack into Stark of all people, literally, because neither of them were watching where they were going. Stark jumps back quick for a baseline human, eyeing him suspiciously. “What are you doing?” he asks, almost accuses really.

“Walking, what’s it look like?” he says sarcastically. This gets him a brief frown of confusion but the Soldier allows it. He was used to dealing with mousy and meek Bucky after all, he could hardly blame the guy for his confusion over the sudden presence of a backbone.

“Where?” Stark fires back quickly.

“No idea, not that it concerns you any,” the Soldier tells him, irritated with the line of questioning. He expects a ‘well you’re in _my_ house’ lecture similar to the ones he’d get from his handlers. They liked to tell him that taking care of him meant that he owed them something but the Soldier wasn’t exactly fond of their version of ‘care’. All that electro shock therapy seemed a bit much to him. He would have preferred a bag of Doritos, preferably the Cool Ranch kind.

Stark doesn’t say anything along those lines though, instead he sighs, “guess not. Good luck on your walk to nowhere. Better than staring at the walls, I guess.”

The Soldier raises an eyebrow at Stark’s odd reaction but he doesn’t comment on it because he gets an idea. He grins wide, “thanks Stark, I’ve got an idea of where I’m going now,” he says, clapping the man on the shoulder and taking off towards a hardware store.

It takes time to find what he’s looking for but he eventually finds what he wants and starts back towards the Tower gleefully. Bucky liked to stare at the walls; the Soldier might as well make them interesting.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am SO sorry this took so long! School got real hectic there but things should be dying down soon. I'm closing in on the end of semester stuff and next term I only have 3 classes so. Anyways, I've got this up now!
> 
> Warnings for disassociation, panic attacks, some consent issues, and I think that's it. If not let me know and I'll add it in.

When Bucky wakes up his eyes fly open when he spots the obnoxious hot pink wall across from him. He jumps out of bed and goes over to the wall, touching it a little and finding it slightly tacky to the touch. “What the fuck?” he whispers, trying to find some sort of memory of doing any of this. Something in the back of his mind bubbles up but it quickly fizzes out. Fucking Winter Soldier. He makes an irritated noise and goes back to his bed, throwing himself into it and pulling the blankets over his head so he didn’t have to look at that hideous pink.

He isn’t sure how long he lies there until Steve shows up. As usual FRIDAY asks him if it’s fine to let Steve in and for a good thirty seconds Bucky considers it. On one hand the last thing Bucky wanted was to talk to anyone, but Steve was supposed to be his best friend… His therapist told him that maybe he should reach out and Steve said he could talk to him…

Objectively he knew that Steve wouldn’t- that he had no interest in listening to Bucky at all- or maybe that was the Soldier. With that in mind he tells FRIDAY to let Steve in, done with the Solider running his damn life. He was tired of living in fear, lying in bed all day, avoiding Steve, having awkward conversations with Wanda, and that damn pink wall. So FRIDAY lets Steve in but Bucky doesn’t actually move from his spot in bed. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to move- he did- he just… didn’t know _how_ to do that. The memory of his leaping out of bed and feeling the walls makes him burrow further into his next of blankets, frightened of the spontaneity of the action. That wasn’t something he did, jumping around making decisions about… making decisions at all actually. He didn’t know what to do with them, there was always too much all at once and everyone expected him to move _forward_ when he couldn’t even _move_ and-

“Bucky? Hey, it’s okay, I’m here, I’ve got you,” Steve says to him, appearing seemingly out of nowhere. It takes Bucky to remember that he told FRIDAY to let Steve in because his breathing is shallow and small and his body is shaking and- “Buck, hey, it’s okay,” Steve murmurs. He sets his hand on Bucky’s shoulder, his flesh one, but Bucky jerks away from the touch.

He disliked being touched, or so he discovered recently, and besides that it _wasn’t_ okay. There was too much and Bucky didn’t know what to do and that was a problem, he needed to know what to do and- “Deep breaths,” Steve says and Bucky is reminded of the breathing exercises his therapist told him about so he takes a deep breath in, holding it for a moment before the panic starts clawing again and then he lets it out quick and inhales a breath just as fast. “ _Deep_ breaths,” Steve reminds him, touching him again. Bucky jerks away again, this time moving over to the other side of the bed and half sitting up, losing his blankets covering his body as he tried and mostly failed at gaining control over his own damn breathing.

“Bucky,” Steve says softly, “whatever it is it’s okay, you’re safe here,” he tells him in a low, soothing voice.

Bucky lets out a small whine as he curls into himself. He _knew_ he was safe here; that AI didn’t let anyone in without his permission- he’d _know_ if someone was here without his permission so it wasn’t like the AI was lulling him into a false sense of security. Besides that Stark was here and for some reason he seemed minimally invested in Bucky’s health. That only makes him feel worse, being housed by someone he victimized. Tony Stark shouldn’t want him anything but dead but here he is, trying to keep Bucky safe and healthy. He was even trying to give Bucky some control back through that AI asking what he wanted.

So he knew he was safe, at least from Tony, who really only intruded when it was necessary. Steve, however, seemed like an intrusion that wouldn’t go away. He tries to tell himself that Steve is trying to help but the Soldier’s skeptical _help who_ was a valid question. When Steve tries to reach out again Bucky’s- the Soldier’s- question is answered. “Leave me alone,” he snaps, curling tighter. He’s too panicked to see the hurt of Steve’s face, and too panicked to notice how close the Solider is to the surface.

“What is going on here?” a new voice adds, sounding annoyed. Bucky looks up slowly to find Tony there, glaring at Steve. He finds it odd that Tony focuses on Steve because Bucky would be more focused on himself given their history. His brain is too frazzled to work out why that is, though, and with Steve’s focus elsewhere he manages to catch his breath some. In the midst of his panic he hadn’t noticed his vision fuzzing at the edges until his head and eyes stop swimming.

“How often does this happen?” Steve demands, all but jumping to his feet.

“How often does _what_ happen? Bucky’s panic attacks? I don’t know, what do I look like? His keeper?” Tony snaps. “Ask him yourself, he’d know better than I would.”

“You’re _supposed_ to be taking care of him,” Steve snaps back in an accusatory tone.

“ _No_ ,” Tony says, “I’m supposed to house him. The fact that I am graciously paying for his therapy and food plus building him an entire floor to himself out of my Tower, and gave him access to things I’d rather not give him access to is a bonus. If you wanted a nanny you should have hired one. Honestly, what do you even expect from me?”

“I expect you to give Bucky what he needs instead of being selfish,” Steve snaps, throwing his hands up in the air.

“I killed his parents,” Bucky says, his own voice sounding small and distant to his own ears.

Steve turns and his body language changes completely. He goes from being angry and annoyed to being… softer, somehow. He looks more willing to help Bucky than Tony but Bucky doesn’t understand why. “No, that wasn’t you Buck-”

“Yes it was, stop pretending like I didn’t kill people, if you want I can give you names, dates, and details and-” a sharp sound draws Bucky’s attention away from Steve to Tony, who is now leaning against the doorway with his hand pressed to him mouth. He’s shaking badly and far paler than he should be. “I’m guilty of hurting a lot of people, and not just the people I killed. Why are you acting like Tony owes me something when I set his life on a collision course of mental health issues, alcoholism, and drugs all to avoid the pain of me killing his parents? How does _he_ end up being in charge of taking care of _me_? That’s not fair or right. I shouldn’t be here,” he says honestly. But he doesn’t know where else to go and he knows Steve will find him again, or keep trying until he does.

“Tony has his own blame in that, he’s the one who made the decision to do all those things-” Steve starts but Bucky cuts him off.

“He wouldn’t have done those things if I didn’t do what I did. And how many people has he hurt because I hurt him?” Bucky asks. He knew all about Tony Stark’s legacy as the Merchant of Death, how much of that was him and how much of that was Bucky pushing him into a position where he felt like he _had_ to be his father to live up to him?

“God,” Tony spits out, drawing himself straighter, “isn’t this sad? My parents’ _murderer_ has more sympathy for the pain he caused me than you do,” Tony says to Steve. “And for the record, Barnes, I’ve always been selfish. No need to blame yourself for that.”

“There is no evidence for that,” Bucky says, frowning.

“You don’t know him well enough,” Steve tells him, sparing a glance to Bucky over his shoulder.

“He took me in, apparently renovated an entire floor for me, paid for my therapy, has his AI cater to me, and pays all other expenses as far as I’m aware and he’d never asked for anything in return. I _killed_ his parents and he did all that for me. Where in that do you see selfishness?” Bucky asks, genuinely perplexed.

“He makes a point,” Tony tells him, “I only did all of that because I feel bad for trying to kill you. Selfish,” he says as if that was even a logical line of thinking.

Bucky brings his hands to the sides of his head and presses in, “you two aren’t making any _sense_ ,” he snaps, irritated.

“Bucky no, don’t do that,” Steve says and Bucky can hear him step towards him.

He jumps out of bed and takes a few steps back, “don’t touch me,” he snaps. Bucky can feel anger from the Soldier too, pushing at the edges of his own mind but Bucky pushes him away. This wasn’t the time for whatever it is he had planned. _Never_ was the time for whatever he might have planned.

“Just leave him alone, clearly we aren’t helping whatever this is,” Tony says, clearly done with the situation.

“We were doing just fine before you got here,” Steve snaps at him.

“Then why did FRIDAY tell me to come save Bucky from his worrying vitals. I didn’t even know you were here, I thought he was trying to like… off himself or something and instead I found you. Obviously things weren’t fine and not because of me so lets _go_ and give him space to… think, if he even does that.” Tony waves a hand around out of irritation, rolling his eyes at current events.

“He thinks,” Steve says, offended on Bucky’s behalf.

“With the amount of time he spends staring at walls I wonder sometimes. But whatever, not my issue. Lets _go_ so Bucky can go back to staring at the walls,” Tony says, leaning towards the doorway to Bucky’s room looking eager to escape.

“You go, I know what I’m doing,” Steve says.

“No you don’t,” the Soldier snaps, fucking annoyed that this asshole wasn’t taking the hint. “How many times does a person have to move away from you for you to get the ‘don’t touch me’ message? You keep acting like you know me but you don’t know anything about me,” The Soldier tells him. And not just because he was, technically, different than Bucky. He didn’t know anything about Bucky either.

“Of course I know you, you’re just a little confused right now-” Steve starts but the Soldier cuts him off.

“I’m not confused, _you_ are. I’m not sure exactly how dense you are but you keep looking for your best friend Bucky from back before the war days like that guy still exists. He doesn’t, he died when Steve Rogers did. Unfortunately for the two of us you became Captain America and I became the Winter Soldier, and neither one of us left those identities with the ones we had,” the Soldier says. Hell, Bucky got a whole new personality out of the deal. He was half curious to see what the shrink would make of _that_ but he took care to always leave Bucky in charge during sessions. He’d never say anything about the Soldier and he wasn’t about to have any more doctors poking and prodding at his brain. Never again.

“That’s not true, I’m still me,” Steve says, taking another step forward.

“Didn’t he tell you to back off in no uncertain terms?” Stark asks, frowning at Steve. He’s frowning at the Soldier too and he swears internally. Of course Stark would notice the difference while Steve remained oblivious. Or at least that’s what the Soldier _thinks_ is happening here.

“Do you not hear what he’s saying? He’s clearly confused, he doesn’t know-”

“Don’t you dare tell me what I know,” the Soldier snaps, “I am _not_ wrong just because you’re to blind to see it. I _know_ what is going on in my own head, they made damn sure of that,” he snarls. Not that he could do anything about what was happening in his head most of the time but that was another issue entirely.

“Lets _go_ ,” Stark says, gesturing to the door forcefully.

“Bucky-” Steve starts and the Soldier cuts him off again.

“Why is it that the guy whose parents I killed cares more about what I’m saying than my supposed best friend?” the Soldier asks, more curious on Bucky’s behalf than anything. He already knew the answer to his question.

“That’s not true, I care-”

“Then get _out_ of here and give him some damn space like he’s been telling you to do since he moved away from you when you tried to touch him or however that played out,” Tony snaps, cutting Steve off.

“He right, I don’t want you here so go. Come back when you’re willing to accept that Bucky Barnes as you know him is dead. Or better yet, when you realize that Steve Rogers as I knew him is dead too. Can’t say I’m fond of the replacement,” the Soldier says to be petty. Bucky presses against the edges of his mind, telling him he went a bit too far with that comment but he knew Bucky agreed so he could thank the Soldier for telling the truth later.

*

Tony doesn’t particularly want to check on Bucky but something about the incident from earlier kept eating at him. Bucky had been so panicked and freaked out and then all of the sudden boom, he was self assured enough to tell Steve flat out that he didn’t like him. And Steve, god, Tony almost felt bad for him because of how hurt he looked. He had ended up leaving looking devastated and Tony beat feet almost as fast given that he had no desire to spend time with his parents’ murderer.

But the sudden change in personality made Tony nervous enough to check it out again, after gaining Bucky’s permission of course. He did that mostly because he wanted Bucky to deny him access though, not because he was particularly noble as a person.

Bucky sits on the couch, watching some terrible television show with his blankets wrapped around his shoulders and popcorn in his lap. Odd behavior to say the least. “Are you… okay?” Tony asks awkwardly, unsure of how to approach this.

“Are you?” Bucky asks, looking over the back of the couch at Tony. “You’re here asking your parents’ murderer if he’s okay. I figure that’s a little stressful for you,” Bucky explains, “why do you care so much anyways? And don’t feed me some guilt line either. Are you not…. Angry at me?” he asks.

Tony considers the question for a moment, “I hate you,” he says bluntly, “Howard, I’ve always hated him and I know he did the best he could but the best he could sucked. But my mother? She was the only reason I didn’t kill myself in my teens, she was one of the only good things about home and you took that from me. So yeah, I’m angry, and I’d _love_ to shove you through a wood chipper feet first just to listen to you scream a little before shock kills you but objectively I know it wasn’t you. Not really anyways. When people are put in difficult positions they make hard, and usually shitty, decisions. I know what it’s like to be in a position where the best you can do is what the enemy is asking you to do and realistically your situation was way worse than mine. I hate you because of what you did, but I can’t really blame you for it,” he says.

Bucky tilts his head to the wide quizzically, “that must make you pretty angry, not even being able to be mad at the guy who hurt you so much.”

“You have no idea,” Tony says, “I’m probably more pissed off that I don’t actually have a real person to blame for my parents’ death than I am at you for technically being the one who killed them. They’re never going to get justice and that _really_ pisses me off,” he says honestly.

“To add insult to injury now you’re housing me because… Steve asked you to? Fucking asshole, he much be one cruel sonofabitch to ever ask something like that from you,” Bucky says, shaking his head harshly. “I can’t believe he had the gall to call you selfish like he didn’t spend years hunting me down looking for some nostalgic past in me that doesn’t exist anywhere but in his own head. You’ve done more for me than him, at least you don’t expect me to be someone from my glory days that I have no memory of. Thanks for that,” Bucky says, getting quiet towards the end of that.

“Expecting you to be different from the person you were seventy years and several traumas ago isn’t something to be thankful for. It’s common fucking sense that you won’t be the same person you were,” Tony points out.

“Yeah, well you’re the only one who sees it that way so it is something to be thankful for. So far my favorite person in this supposedly free future of mine is someone who hates me. Go figure,” Bucky mumbles.

“Yeah, well, I’ve got a fat load of two and a half people in my life that give two shits about me and one of those people killed my parents. Guess we both have fucked up, shitty lives,” Tony says.

“Congrats to us,” Bucky says dryly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To clarify to the audience Tony is speaking to the Soldier in the last bit but he doesn't know the difference between him and Bucky yet. More on that later!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is a little short, sorry! But it's getting the ball rolling a little so.

Bucky sits on the couch, blanket wrapped around his shoulders staring straight ahead like he usually did in his bedroom. Wanda frowns because she can feel the irritated buzz from his mind but the reason has simmered down enough that she can’t gather it from surface thoughts. “You’re out of your room,” she says in a cheery tone, “that’s good.” Truthfully she had no idea if that was good or not, but it had to be better than staring at a white wall all day.

“My room is pink,” Bucky mumbles, still staring straight ahead. She gets a distinct image of an awful shade of pink and wrinkles her nose.

“You’re not very good at picking colors, that’s a terrible shade,” she says without thinking. Suspicion spikes in Bucky’s mind hard enough that she has to blink and extend her hands outward for balance.

“How do you know what’s in my head?” Bucky snaps, head turning in her direction quick. She can feel something else there too; something at the back of Bucky’s mind moving around and that was… _peculiar_.

“I… did no one tell you that I’m a telepath?” she asks, gasping when another harsh wave of suspicion cuts at her mind. Whatever it is in the back of Bucky’s mind grows stronger at that moment and for a second she _swears_ she hears someone else think _stay out of my head_ but that wasn’t possible. “I only read surface thoughts normally, mostly feelings. That would be better described as an empathy- I won’t enter your mind unless you expressly ask me to. To be honest I have better things to do,” she jokes, or tries to because it falls flat.

“Why did no one tell me that?” Bucky asks in a harsh tone.

“I thought you knew,” Wanda says, “we met before, I assumed Steve would have explained my powers and I’m sure Stark thought the same.” She might not like the man but she has lived with him for enough time to know that he wasn’t malicious, not intentionally anyways. It had irked her, still did if she was honest with herself. She expected a monster; a callus man who cared only for himself but her evidence suggested that Stark cared very little for himself and very much for everyone else. He didn’t know how to show that care often but he _did_ care, even for her, even after she entered his mind and played with his worst fears.

It had struck her later that of everyone’s worst fears only Stark’s and Natasha’s visions were so… violent. Thor’s vision was something else, something not caused just by her and she wasn’t sure how that affected things but she attributed it to his differing biology. Natasha still dreamed her vision but Wanda got the distinct feeling that she dreamed that often even before Wanda forced her to replay the old memory awake. Her fear was that she was no more than the weapon she was constructed to be- that she wasn’t a worthy hero. Stark had surprised her though, and at first she thought his vision was arrogant. One man could never be so powerful as to nearly cause the destruction of the whole world until his vision all but came true.

Wanda hadn’t just tapped into a fear- she all but made it come to life all the while Stark was trying to stop it from happening. She had paid attention since then, noted his thoughts and feelings and no she saw something else. She didn’t want to though, it was _easier_ for her to hate Tony for what he’s done but she couldn’t ignore that he did it out of an overdeveloped sense of guilt and responsibility, not narcissism. Oh, that played into it, but he wasn’t exactly arrogant to assume his technology was life altering. It was, and it continues to be with mixed effects. But it would be easier to hate him, to not care that he wasn’t quite the narcissist that she thought he was than to accept that maybe the man she blamed for her parents’ death was almost more broken than she was.

Or maybe he _was_ more broken than her to house his own parents’ murderer on his own dime. That was more than generous even considering what Wanda considered a logical outburst. Steve didn’t agree- oddly none of the Avengers did and she understood objectively, but she knew what it was like to see her parents’ murderer and want him to _pay_ for what he’s done. She knew how good it felt to hurt that person, how much she wanted to do it again even still. That anger, that hurt, it didn’t go away because that person has been victimized. Tony Stark was a victim in his own right even before he made the bomb that killed her family. That did not make her less angry with him, it did not make him easier to sympathize with, and it did not make her like him any. So what Steve was expecting of Stark- for him to simply forgive and forget- that was impossible and even Stark knew it.

She knew that because he never once even alluded for her to forgive him, not ever. Instead he tried, and failed, to try and show her that he cared about her, that he wasn’t the same man that hurt her all those years ago. Even if he was still very confused on what ‘protection’ looked like.

Too be fair he seemed to be doing fine with Bucky, at least until now but that was more an oversight of everyone, not just Stark.

“I don’t want you anywhere near my mind,” Bucky tells her, eyes sharp despite the dark circles under them. His tone is low, dangerous, but she could feel an active disinterest in hurting her. He just wanted her to be frightened enough to leave his mind to himself.

That was fair, she thought, but then she remembers something. “Wait- I did tell you I was a telepath. When we first met, remember? You were afraid you might hurt me and I told you that was highly unlikely because of my telepathy,” she says slowly, gently. With a mind like his, everything being so jumbled up and displaced it was quite likely that he forgot. “And I won’t enter your mind, like I said I have no interest in doing that. But I will read your feelings and surface thoughts- I can’t help that. It’s like… walking into a room and smelling something, the telepathy is like another sense.”

One she wished she could turn off sometimes, like now, with Bucky’s mind so on edge and pointy around the parameter that it physically hurt to be near him. It happened with Tony plenty too, his mind was always so much, _too_ much. At least with the others they could shield their feelings or ignore them so that she could too but Bucky and Tony seemed incapable of that.

Bucky frowns at her words and she can hear the confusion, see the fuzzy memory that wasn’t quite formed. “I don’t remember that very well,” he murmurs, “I only remember the telekinesis.”

Wanda lets out a soft laugh, “well that one is a little hard to miss all things considered,” she says, lifting a hand with red kinetic energy buzzing around it. Bucky doesn’t laugh at the joke so she drops her hand slowly, letting the energy fizzle out. “If you want I can help you repaint your room,” Wanda says, “that really is a good awful shade of pink.”

*

“Have you noticed anything… _odd_ about Bucky?” Wanda asks. That was a vague question given that near everything about Bucky Barnes was a damn mystery to Tony. “With his mind,” Wanda clarifies, probably hearing his confusion with the ambiguous question.

“I’m not exactly a mind reader,” he says. The answer was that he _had_ noticed odd things about Bucky but he had no clue if those things were actually odd given that he had no knowledge of his ‘normal’ behavior. Hell, at this point he had no clue if _Bucky_ knew what Bucky’s normal behavior was.

“But you live with him,” Wanda says, pushing forward in her seat like she expected Tony to have more answers than he did.

Tony sighs, “barely. What exactly am I supposed to notice?” he asks. And is what he noticed even relevant? Barnes had a shrink to do all that work for him, Tony didn’t need to go picking at his brain. He wasn’t exactly a qualified professional in the area of mental health considering his own sorry state of mind.

Wanda considers the question for while, “well I noticed… _something_ today. And the last time I was here. Sometimes it’s like Bucky isn’t Bucky, except today it was like… like I was detecting two minds at once but there was only one person there,” she says.

His blood runs cold and he grips his chair tight, “so you were probably detecting my mind. I came home not long after you got here, maybe you got confused. It happens,” he says. It’s denial at best, he knows, but it was possible that Wanda was just mixing minds. If what she was detecting was _real_ then that meant he didn’t get rid of the Winter Solider like he thought and… and…

“Breathe, Stark, you need to focus so we can figure out what’s going on here,” Wanda tells him. “I wasn’t confused, I know what your mind feels like, I’ve been in it. This was different, I could _feel_ someone else in there and I don’t think it was the Winter Soldier. I felt his mind briefly when Clint and I met up with Steve. His mind was cold, empty except for the orders to carry out missions. This… person… he was angry when Bucky forgot about my being a telepath. I heard a distinct _stay out of my head_ that wasn’t from Bucky and-” Tony doesn’t listen to the rest because he’s running out of the room and to the nearest method of transport to get himself _out_ of there.

*

The Soldier hears about more than sees Stark take off, using the Iron Man suit to fly off to someplace that meant he didn’t have to deal with him. It almost stung to know that Stark had just _left_ him here but the feeling is inexplicable so be ignores it in favor of doing something more… enjoyable. He didn’t get much joy out of life watching Bucky stare at new walls considering the Soldier managed to scare him out of the bedroom. Maybe he’d get to stare at the new pretty red walls that Wanda helped him paint now. Goodie goodie, his life was so much more interesting!

Not.

He leaves the house just because he know he can, headed nowhere on foot. It was nice to just _enjoy_ things outside for a little while. The air was cold, almost harsh on his skin but he was used to cold temperatures so he didn’t mind that much. The air smelled different around this time too, almost bitter, and he liked the change from the stale scent of the apartment he was stuck living in. Bucky had no interest in leaving, didn’t even know what he’d do with himself but the Soldier didn’t care what he did, as long as he was doing _something_.

Something to him turns out to be walking with no real idea of where he was going until he heard some commotion down an ally way he was walking past. At first he doesn’t take much note but then he hears the distinct sound of skin-on-skin so he decides to investigate. It doesn’t take long to deduce the three guys surrounding the tall, thin guy were trying to rob him. “Back off,” he says in a lazy tone, unconcerned with the danger because he was the predator here.

The three men turn around and glare at him while the skinny guy looks like a baby deer in the headlights, mostly because his legs were so long and his eyes were so large. On second thought he sort of looked like a bug. A pretty young looking bug at that. Even HYDRA didn’t pick on children and he was reliably informed that they were the lowest of the low and yet here these guys were.

“You best follow your own advice,” the tallest of the three says, stepping forward bravely. Fucking moron.

“I’d rather not, but I’m afraid I’m at the advantage here so you might just want to leave this strangely insect-like person here alone,” he says. Insect Guy’s eyes get bigger and his eyebrows draw together in confusion but the Soldier is unconcerned about that. It was irrelevant information.

“There’s three of us and one of you, howd’ya figure _you’re_ at an advantage?” Goonie Two asks.

“Maybe he’s stupid enough to think bug-eye over there will help him,” Goonie three says to Goonie two. They laugh like that’s the funniest thing in the world and the Soldier rolls his eyes, tired of this crap.

See, the thing about pack mentality was that it was far too easy to extinguish. All you had to do was take out the strongest of the pack- the leader- and the rest of the pack ran off because if their strongest doesn’t stand a chance how could they? They were easy pickings and the Soldier was all too happy to deal with the leader when he steps forward. The guy puts on a good show, his knuckles cracking as his fist curls, his head titling down some to create a few menacing shadows. But it was all show and the Soldier was more about action than appearances.

“Wrong choice,” he says in the same casual tone he used when he first approached the group. The leader goes flying back with a swift kick to the chest, smacking into the cement too far down the ally for the kick to have been delivered by any average human. Hell, even an abnormally strong human couldn’t kick someone halfway down an ally and have him flip over a few times like a limp rag doll before landing in a pile of his own broken dignity.

“Anyone else?” he asks, raising an eyebrow at the other two. They scatter just like he predicted they would. _Boring_.

“Shit man, teach me how to kick like that,” Bug Eye says, eyes growing even wider than they were before.

“Get tortured by HYDRA for seventy years,” the Soldier says flippantly before walking off, interest in the current situation lost now that the fight, if he could even call it that, was over. He gives the Team Leader a soft kick in the ribs, just enough to hurt like hell but no where near enough to kill him. “Learn to recognize when someone is more dangerous than you, asshole,” he says as he walks off. It might do him a little good next time he chooses to rob the wrong bug-eyed kid.

Besides that it felt nice to hit someone after so long. God knew Bucky would wet himself if he ever caught the Soldier thinking that but some people deserved the kind of justice the Soldier doled out. Like their ex handlers- they were shitty people and he doubted that even Bucky would object to smacking them around a little. Maybe he'd go hunt one or two down for fun when he wasn't under so much scrutiny.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am SO sorry this took so long! I have had a week from _hell_ between some lingering mental health issues and attempting to apply for grad school :/
> 
> Warnings for some internalized issues and a liiiiittle bit of ableism. If anything needs to be added let me know. 
> 
> Also more Soldier/ Tony interaction! Gunna get on to the getting past it stage now!

Tony’s fingers hover over the call button for some time before he tosses the phone aside, going back to brooding by himself. Pepper didn’t need his shit, that was probably why she dumped him when she did. He wanted to blame her, to be mad at her, but ultimately he knew she was right to go. She couldn’t handle what he did and truth be told most days he couldn’t either. It’s been proven over and over again, and as of late he wasn’t sure the others could handle things either. They were all fractured in their own ways, broken beyond repair but stronger than most.

It was what made them all good at their jobs even when they managed to screw up as badly as they all have in the past- especially him. But this… this Bucky thing. Tony isn’t sure he can handle any of what was happening there, wasn’t even sure he _wanted_ to deal with any of that stuff. This was all way too much for him to handle and after Ultron he wasn’t in the business of making big decisions, or _any_ decisions, in a bad state of mind. The problem with that was that he was always in a bad state of mind these days.

Someone knocks on the door, breaking his concentration and pulling him back to the real world. A second knock stirs him into action, “come in,” he manages to croak out. He sounded like shit even to his own ears.

“Hey,” Rhodey says softly as he pushes the door open and wheels himself in carefully due to the tea currently sitting in his lap, “you look horrible.” Rhodey looks worried about him and god does Tony appreciate that given that he was probably the only one.

“Thanks man, I feel worse than I look.” Like he battled it out with a meat grinder and the meat grinder won.

Rhodey gives him a skeptical look, “that’s possible? No offense man but you look _really_ bad. Are you sure you’re okay?” Rhodey asks, handing over the tea in his lap. Tony gives the tea a distasteful look because he hates tea and Rhodey knows it but Rhodey gives him a look that reminds Tony very much of Rhodey’s late mother. She thought everything could be solved with some tea and tough love. Tony personally thought tea tasted like dirty leaves and sadness but he takes the cup anyways because it would make Rhodey feel better.

Tony contemplates his answer for a long moment and Rhodey lets him process, knowing he needed the time to figure out what he wanted to say. “No, I’m not okay, and I’m not sure I ever will be,” he says. Or that he ever was. God knew he was aware of all the horrible things he did to himself and other people when things went wrong in his life. Hell, he continued an entire _business_ on the premise that killing people for money was a good plan and actively thought that was _okay_. Though he still held the opinion that the military did great things, and so did military funding. Maybe not all the time, but no one was perfect.

“You’re tough, Tony, you’ll come out of this just like always. I’ve seen you go through some really hard things and you always manage to surprise me,” Rhodey tells him. His face is open, honest, but Tony knows it’s his therapy face. Tony doesn’t need therapy- well he probably did- but not from Rhodey. He didn’t want pity.

“If I manage to surprise you it probably isn’t in very good ways,” he says truthfully. Like his birthday party and the disaster that resulted from all of that.

“Sometimes,” Rhodey admits, “but you managed to create a new _element_ so that you could outlive being poisoned by the thing that was keeping you alive. That’s really impressive, Tony, and you _always_ manage some hue turn around like that. Like Iron Man in the caves, I don’t even know how the hell you _did_ that and don’t think I didn’t try. I’m a genius too, but I’m lost on how the hell you managed. I know things are really hard for you right now, but you’ll get through it because that’s who you are,” he says.

This, at least, is all Rhodey rather than him playing therapist. “I don’t know if I can do that anymore,” he says, “I… I’m tired, Rhodey. I keep trying to give and give and I keep screwing up and… I don’t know how much more I have to put out there anymore. I’m not even sure I’m _helping_ at this point, that any of us are helping. Most days I think we all do more damage than good. People are right to be upset about that,” he says quietly. Sometimes he wished he was as sure of things as Steve seemed to be all the time. It was like nothing ever seemed to trip him up, like he always knew exactly what to do and how to do it.

But then he’d remember all the times _he_ was that sure about something, that he had been _certain_ that his way would work, who cared what others thought. He thought that way with SI before he was forced to live the reality he was forcing others into. Being sure didn’t meant you were right and now that kind of confidence made him leery, skeptical, because the evidence suggested that that was a disaster waiting to happen. Evidence was always key and his lived experience suggested that whenever he thought he was perfectly clear headed and making the best decision possible was always when he managed to screw up drastically. So he got stuck in a weird space where he wished he was as sure as Steve, but he didn’t want to be because he knew that would be the time when something went very, very wrong.

“Hey,” Rhodey says, reaching out and squeezing Tony’s knee, “I know this is all difficult but you _are_ doing the right thing, you _are_ helping. We have no idea what would have happened in New York if it weren’t for you, that’s important Tony. I know things have been rough for you lately but I’m here for you.”

“And Ultron? So I saved the world only to nearly end it a few years later. At that point does it _matter_ what good I’ve done if the cons always outweigh the pros? I know I’ve done good things, but if those things aren’t more good than bad than what’s the point? People deserve someone who can actually help and I’m not sure that’s me,” he says. It hurt to say because he didn’t want to stop, almost felt compelled to keep going, but if what he was doing was harming more than hurting… then there was nothing he could do but step down. Even in his personal life things were way down hill in the last year or so. Pepper left him, the team left him, Bucky got stuck in a house with him, it turns out that his ridding Bucky of the Winter Soldier was less permanent than he thought so now his own fucking home was unsafe, and he almost lost Rhodey too. Nothing was safe from loss anymore and he spent more time waiting to loose something else than hoping something came back.

“I’m gunna be honest, Tony, the person who is always confident that they’re the right person to save everyone makes me nervous. When you first picked up this hero thing I thought that would be you and for awhile it was, but then you messed up, and you acknowledged it. Then you stopped operating like you knew best always because when you did things went wrong. I think Steve is a good man, and I think his heart is in the right place, but if you want to help, _truly_ help, then you need to know that someone else knows what they need better than you. You’ve got listening problems, but you know it, and you try to compensate with some mixed success but that’s good. It means you’re willing to learn, but Steve… I think he was like that at one point but something changed. He’s still a good man, but he needs to follow his own advice and listen to people, to work as a team with the people he’s claiming to help. All of you do,” Rhodey says.

Tony thought that too, that they should listen to people, what they want. They were saying these things for a reason, and maybe he didn’t go about listening in the right way but he wasn’t certain Steve had chosen the right way either. Maybe there was something else they could do, something in between what they both decided was best, but he doubted Steve would listen to him. He wasn’t sure he even blamed him for that really, not with his track record of fantastic ideas. “I tried that and it ruined the team,” Tony says bluntly.

“You did what you thought was right- the fact that your team decided to hate you for it isn’t your fault.” The statement is blunt, almost harsh in nature but Tony supposes its true.

“And how about you, Rhodey, how are you doing?” he asks. Something has been off since the accident, he could feel it, but he wasn’t sure Rhodey would be ready to talk about it. Maybe now he would because Tony opened up a little, he hoped so.

It takes a long while for Rhodey to do something and even then it was prodding him to drink his tea so he did, wrinkling his nose at the awful taste of the leaves. Rhodey gives him the face his mother used to when Tony wrinkled his nose at her too and he almost laughs at the similarity. Rhodey liked to pretend he was so much like his father because they were both military men at heart, but he was far more like his mother than he’d ever admit. She was a wonderful woman; Tony missed her and her horrible tea. Rhodey wasn’t as good at making it as she was even if it tasted like crap either way.

“I… I hate this,” Rhodey finally says, drawing Tony’s attention away from his awful tasting drink. “I’ve got no choice but to deal with it but I hate this god damn chair and all the bullshit that comes with it. I hate being so dependent on people, I hate not being able to flip over in the middle of the night by myself, I hate having to use your resources to live properly- this sucks, Tony. And I know you’re more than happy to help, and I know this certainly isn’t the worst thing that could have happened to me but god I fucking hate this damn chair. I’ve worked my whole damn life to be independent and now I have no choice but to leech off everyone around me,” Rhodey says harshly, shaking his head.

“It isn’t leeching if you need it, Rhodey, you just have a different standard of living now. That’s okay and I have no problem helping you, especially considering I’m half the reason you’re in this situation.” He was going to continue but Rhodey cuts him off before he can.

“Don’t give me that shit, I know you have a problem with thinking you’re personally responsible for everything but your actions don’t exist in a damn vacuum. So you make mistakes, everyone else does too, stop pretending like you’re the only one who can hurt people. It’s annoying. I choose to be there because I wanted to be, I followed you because I believed in what you were saying and I didn’t want to see Steve and Bucky hurt. I made the call to ground Sam in the safest way possible; Vision missed the shot because he had his own stuff going on. You can’t control that, I can’t control that, Vision couldn’t even control that, no one could. And that pisses me off more. There was nothing anyone could have done,” he says sharply.

“No one to blame,” Tony translates.

Rhodey’s head lifts in surprise, “I… yeah, how’d you know that?” he asks.

“Because when bad things happen to us we like to blame other people. Sometimes you’re right to, but sometimes there isn’t anyone there to blame. That’s how it was with my parents’ death back before I found out what really happened. Accidents happened but _god_ I wanted to believe Howard was drunk again, that he killed my mom. Nothing suggested that and I chose to believe that the cops were lying. Turns out they were, just not about the stuff I thought they were. But I get it either way, you want someone to blame for being put in a situation you didn’t want but you don’t have that. It’s hard,” he says.

“What do you do with that?” Rhodey asks quietly.

“You’re talking to the guy who buried his issues in blood money, sex, drinking, and gambling. I am not the expert on how to deal with grief. But the thing that I found that helped the most, when I was ready, was talking about it. I know I sound like a goddamn psychology cliché, but sometimes you just need to rage about stuff and it helps. Whatever you’re feeling, I won’t judge you for it. God knows I’d have no place to even if I wanted to.” That had been the problem with him, judgment. People kept telling him to talk but when he did they rolled their eyes, ignored him, called him dramatic, arrogant. It didn’t exactly foster the kinds of situations he’d been hoping for- all he wanted was to get it out, to tell _someone_ but no one seemed to care. Those that did left him in Pepper’s case, and Rhodey was busy with his own stuff so Tony didn’t want to intrude.

“Do you mean that?” Rhodey asks softly, hesitantly. Tony nods because Rhodey needed it, and so did he, whatever Rhodey was going to say. “And if that means telling you that I resent you?” he asks, voice even softer this time.

Tony does his best not to change his body language but he must fail because Rhodey frowns at him. “What do you mean by that?” he asks. No sense in freaking out before he even knew what was happening.

Rhodey considers his answer for a few long, tense moments. “I mean that you’ve always come to me with your problems, always. And I like that because it means that you trust me, and I like being able to help you, but it also means that I’m in control. Not over you, I wouldn’t even try honestly, but over myself. People don’t go to advice from the person who doesn’t have their life together and you coming to me meant that you thought I was stable. You don’t do that anymore and now I’m dependent on you. I can’t do _anything_ without your help in some way and sometimes I just want to throw shit at your head and tell you to fuck off, but I can’t because I need you and that’s also pretty rude considering you’ve been nothing but helpful.” He sounds ashamed of that but Tony gets it because he’s felt that too. He just never told Rhodey about it.

“Who doesn’t hate the person who helps them a little? I used to hate you too sometimes, you never seemed to slip up or struggle and as much as I loved that about you I hated it too. Sometimes I feel the same way about Steve, like I simultaneously want to be him and watch him fail and fall flat on his face and rub it in a little, show him what it’s _really_ like to screw up the way I have. To show him how it feels to suffer like I have and laugh. But objectively speaking that’s A- horrible, and B- I know that if I saw that happen I wouldn’t gain any of the pleasure I want from it. I’d just feel bad, and even worse that I wished it on him at some point. Any of that sound familiar?” he asks.

“Yeah, yeah it does actually. Damn, I didn’t think… I thought you’d think I was some kind of monster for that. I mean you wouldn’t be wrong, what kind of best friend finds himself _glad_ that his best friend’s relationship ended just so that he isn’t the only one who has to suffer? What the hell is even _wrong_ with me for thinking that?” he asks, shaking his head, “that is just messed up.”

Tony shrugs, “so are we. Want some half finished tea to solve your problems?” he asks, handing the cup over to Rhodey.

“Hell no, get that leafy shit away from me. I only gave it to you because I knew you hated it and you’d think I was trying to mom you,” Rhodey says, then frowns at his words.

“Asshole,” Tony says, but it isn’t harsh. As much as Rhodey didn’t like his thoughts, as much as Tony didn’t like them, he understood them. Rhodey was angry and he had a right to be, anyone who’s gone through a trauma had to be mad at someone. For a moment they’re quite, pensive almost, but then they burst out laughing, shaking their heads and bonding over their pain- though perhaps in a more constructive way than either of them were used to.

*

He enters the Tower quietly, carefully. This time he was on foot despite Rhodey’s insistence that he should take the suit. He had more than the one that he took and besides that he figured that if the Winter Soldier wanted him dead he would be. Unless he was biding his time or something. Either way he wasn’t going to live his life in fear, he wasn’t going to be afraid of his own damn home, and he was done running from his problems. It was time to deal with them and not by doing something stupid. He called ahead and Bucky approved his entry according to FRIDAY so he was going to… to… do something even if he had no idea what.

When the elevator door dings open he is actively controlling his breathing but he continues forward. Bucky is perched on the couch watching something when he walks in. He looks over the back of the couch, leaving only his eyes visible, and tilts his head to the side. “You’re either the bravest or stupidest man I have ever met. Mind clarifying which?” he asks with an air of confidence.

“Which one of you am I dealing with right now?” he asks, cutting to the chase even if he thinks he knows the answer already.

“Probably the one you hate more, even if I wouldn’t say Bucky is blameless,” … Winter Soldier? says.

Tony ignores the way his blood runs cold and steels himself for a conversation, “you killed my parents,” he says in place of whatever it was he was going to.

Winter Soldier tilts his head to the side, “I thought we covered that already?” he asks, pulling himself off the couch. Tony forces himself to remain calm as the Winter Soldier moves closer, “but thank you for answering my question. I think I’m going to go with brave, stupid too, but your determination is admirable. You know you’re the only one who has ever had a conversation with me without the control words or Bucky standing in my way? You watched me kill your parents in cold blood and you’re the only one willing to face me without flinching. HYDRA could learn a thing or two from someone like you,” he says, slinking away to go do something else.

He takes a deep breath and ignores his too-high heart rate and sweating. “Is this some sort of scare tactic?” he asks, “because it isn’t going to work.” It’s a lie and they both know it but it makes him feel better.

“You’re already afraid of me, have been since I got here so scaring you is redundant- yet you’re _still_ here. Everyone else, they’re content to ignore my existence, to pretend I’m gone and Bucky is fine. All except you and maybe that telepathic brunette. The telepath I get, you can do dangerous things inside a person’s mind, but you’re basically useless against me even with the suit so why are you here? You’re terrified but you keep coming back like you’re trying to punish yourself through me or something,” Winter Soldier says, shaking his head. “You confuse me.”

“Grab a number and get in line, I confuse everyone. But I’m here to deal with my problems, and you though I guess they’re the same thing in this case. What are you still doing here? I thought I got rid of you,” he says bluntly.

The Winter Soldier laughs, “you got rid of the _words_ , not me. All you did was make me impossible to control- thanks for the free will. Bucky hates it but he hates everything so it’s no real loss.” The Winter Soldier sounds flippant, rude almost.

“Fuck your free will, that was never my intention. You talk about Bucky like he’s someone else, is he?” he asks.

“Sort of. We’re the same person I suppose, or we were before all that electroshock therapy and torture. I’m what’s left when the useless bits of Bucky were stripped away. He’s all the useless bits,” he says. The tone is distasteful, like he didn’t like Bucky much though Tony didn’t get why. It wasn’t like Bucky was all that dislike worthy, he didn’t even do anything most of the time. Like a hamster or something.

“Harsh. I like him better than you though, useless or not.”

Winter Soldier rolls his eyes, “that’s so petty and all because I killed your parents. Bucky is boring, he doesn’t even _do_ anything. He’s weak- what is there to like?”

“You think I’m being petty because you killed my parents? Do you even _have_ feelings? And I like Bucky better because he’s an actual person, you’re Frankenstein’s monster,” he snaps, irritated with the Winter Soldier’s claims.

“Of course I have feelings, for example I’m bored with this conversation. Why don’t we get to the good stuff, hmm? You want to know if I feel guilty for killing your parents? If it keeps me awake at night or whatever other cliché you toss at me? Fine, I’ll give you your answers. No, I don’t feel he slightest but guilty and I sleep like a baby. You want guilt go talk to Bucky, he’s basically drowning in it, useless as he is,” Winter Soldier mumbles, shaking his head and rolling his eyes at Bucky, Tony thinks.

“You don’t feel guilty,” he states more than asks. The question comes out blunt, almost dumb sounding.

“Why should I? Howard Stark was a piece of shit and we both know it. Did the world really lose something the day I killed him off?” he asks, eyebrow raised.

“And my mother?” Tony asks quietly.

At this the Winter Soldier thinks, which Tony finds curious. “I don’t see why you’d care about her either. The woman was complicit in your abuse; I see no reason to spare someone who thinks torturing children is acceptable in any capacity. Frankenstein’s monster or no even _I_ have more morals than she did.”

Tony lets out a harsh laugh, “if you think she could have just walked away from Howard with me with no consequences you’re more fucking deluded than I thought you were. She was a good woman who made the best of a shit situation and you killed her for it,” he snaps, hands shaking a little with rage.

“Or you’re a sad little boy who convinced himself mommy really did love him because it makes you feel better. Which one of us do you really think is right?” Winter Soldier asks, head tilted to the side.

“Oh fuck you,” Tony snaps, turning on his heel and walking off before he did something stupid.

“Think about it,” Winter Soldier calls after him, “because you’re walking off proves my point more than yours. Why walk away if you had a real argument?”

*

The Soldier sits in a bar with a drink and some random woman in front of him trying to flirt her way into his pants. All she had to do was  _ask_ but since she insisted on going about it the long way he figured he'd make her work for it. 

"You know, it's weird that he called me Frankenstein's monster. It was the  _doctor_ that was the monster, not the sorry sap he brought to life. That's a pretty roundabout way of telling me he pities me," he says casually, head tilted to the side. 

His 'date' frowns at him, "huh?"

" _Someone_ didn't read the book," he sing-songs, "the doctor- the guy who brought the creature to life, he was the real monster of the novel. That was the point, the guy he brought to life was supposed to be pitied- the doctor went and messed with some stuff he didn't understand and he got his comeuppance. Technically the creature didn't have a name," he says. "All in all he fits the metaphor better than I do given that  _he's_ the one who goes around messing with things he doesn't understand and  _I'm_ the one who didn't ask to be created. So that was a useless statement." His current companion clearly has no clue what to do with this information and he shrugs, unconcerned with her confusion. 

"Well, technically no one  _asks_ to be made. Our parents make that decision for us," someone says from behind him. The Soldier turns to find an attractive enough looking guy behind him, eyeing him as well.

"I wonder if anyone considers the morality of that- bringing life into this world and assuming that they'll want it. I didn't  _ask_ for any of the things that have been inflicted upon me but creators expected me to be grateful for it all because I have something most people don't. I'd take it back if it meant I got a choice in how I was bought into this world," he says more to himself than either of the people listening to his words. 

"Dude, you have some serious daddy issues," the guy says, frowning at him. 

"You would too if your parentage were a bunch Neo-Nazis. But that's irrelevant, want to get out of here?" he asks, giving the guy a pretty smile. His eyes glaze over and he knows that the rest of his words were forgotten. He turns to the girl behind him, "next time, sweetheart, just ask, it's easier than listening to me ramble on about shit you don't care about." 

With that he walks off, unsure about Stark's earlier words and no less confused by the man with a shocking amount of bravery. Stronger men fell to him long before he needed words or force because they knew what he was capable of. Stark witnessed it first-hand, felt the effects of the damage when his parents were killed, and he still stood strong, face tilted up defiantly even as his heart raced too fast in his chest. He wanted to know more about someone so willing to look his fears in the eye and insult them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've never read Frankenstein, I'm just going off the knowledge of some English majors I know and one of my old English teacher. Feel free to ignore inaccuracies- I read the Wiki page but like. It's Wiki, ya never know.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alrighty, this one is a little short so sorry about that! I am battling a head cold but I wanted to update this sucker regardless of the cotton that feels stuffed into my poor brain. Plus Bucky starts self-actualizing! 
> 
> Warnings for implied torture. If there's something else that needs to be added let me know and I'll put it in the list.

Bucky stares at the ingredients gathered in front of him, prepared to make banana bread. He promised himself he’d stop lying around doing nothing because it only seemed to fuel the Soldier and he wanted his damn life back. He didn’t like the red wall any better than the pink one though he was happy that Wanda helped him pick a color that wasn’t so offensive to the eyes. So now he was trying to fill his day with something, anything, so that he could learn how to be human again.

When he woke up that morning he almost panicked himself back under the covers but he managed to get ahold of himself and get up, even if he sat in the kitchen for a solid hour before he moved again. His therapist told him small steps but he didn’t know what that looked like. So now he sat with banana bread ingredients in front of him, a recipe suggested by FRIDAY when he started to panic again, with determination. He started with this because baking followed a strict formula and he thought he might panic less if he had explicit instructions. He slowly examines what he needed to do, scanning his ingredients as he read them and setting out to complete the first step.

He works slowly, methodically, but he thinks it will turn out alright by the time he puts the bread into the oven to cook. Then he considers what he’s supposed to while the bread cooks and freezes. That hadn’t been something he thought of and he had no idea what to do for the hour and a half it took to cook- what did anyone do with an hour and a half?

“I would suggest the dishes,” FRIDAY says, scaring the hell out of him until he realizes that he spoke out loud and the AI was only trying to help him out. He glances over at the small pile of things he amassed while baking and nods to himself, moving over to the sink. FRIDAY helps him locate the dish soap, which was for some reason under the sink, and he starts washing the dishes methodically, carefully inspecting each one for cleanliness before setting it aside.

By the time he’s done the smell of the bread was filling the kitchen and the rest of his small space. Across the room the television flicks on, landing on a cooking channel, so he goes over to his usual spot on the couch to watch what was being cooked more to pass the time than anything.

*

Tony spends as little time in the Tower as possible, but he also happened to live there unless he was doing business elsewhere. It wasn’t the ideal situation to say the least, and Rhodey called him at least once a day to check on him, but he made it work. Once Pepper called him but he left it to go to voicemail like usual and when she didn’t leave a prompt message informing him of whatever paperwork she needed he left it be. If she had something important to say she would have said it- one of the many reasons he had loved Pepper. She was the kind of no-nonsense he could handle, plus she was wicked smart, funny, and attractive. They had made a great team until things got all messed up.

He considered calling her back for a solid day but he doesn’t. He didn’t want to do that to himself or her- whatever her reason for calling Tony was sure it passed by now and he didn’t want to go dredging things up again. Things with Pepper were finally starting to hurt less to think about and he wasn’t about to jeopardize that because of a stray phone call that probably wasn’t thought out very well. Even if he really wanted to hear her voice- _her_ voice- not the one she used when dealing with Tony the Business Partner. But he had long ago accepted that he would likely never hear that voice again, no matter how much he might want to sometimes.

He’s attempting to work out some designs for a suit that would compensate for Rhodey’s inability to move his lower half when FRIDAY catches his attention. “Sir, Bucky is asking if you want banana bread,” the AI says.

“And get poisoned? No thanks.” It’s harsh maybe, a little blunt, but it was truthful. He had no interest in Bucky Barnes or his damn banana bread.

“Sir, I watched him make it. I would not have allowed him to poison you,” FRIDAY says.

For a moment Tony is struck by that because this is the first time she displayed the kind of humanity that JARVIS had. There have been moments before, but they were small, this in comparison is a considerable amount of progress. “Thanks, FRIDAY, but he’s still not coming up here.”

“I think it would be beneficial to him to have human contact,” FRIDAY tells him.

“Like I care about Barnes having human contact. Make him eat his stupid banana bread alone,” Tony tells her.

“You are still uncomfortable with him,” the AI says.

“No shit Sherlock,” Tony mumbles.

“For that reason I believe it would be beneficial to you to speak to him- perhaps it would provide some sort of closure for you both. And as I am playing Watson in this scenario I have been reliably informed by the Internet that I am the more correct one about these things,” the AI says in an almost snarky tone.

Tony gives the ceiling a look, briefly adopting that weird habit everyone else had when thy heard FRIDAY speak, or JARVIS before her. Technically she wasn’t in the ceiling- she’s everywhere, but he developed the habit too, when he was annoyed with something she was saying. Except he knew where the cameras were so he looked towards one of those. It was like looking at FRIDAY’s face even though she didn’t have one technically. “You are so not Watson, you barely even know what emotions are,” he points out.

“True,” FRIDAY admits, “but I do know that you are not finished processing whatever is going on in your head and this might help. I did some research.”

“Oh god, stop reading psychobabble in the internet. I thought I taught you how to find good sources- do I need to recode you?” he asks, wrinkling his nose.

“I found reliable sources, I am not in need of recoding. The concept I read about was called ‘restorative justice’. You need to be restored, I thought this might be a good way to do it,” she says almost primly, like she was offended that Tony suggested she didn’t know how to source right. It was hardly his fault she was clearly losing her code capabilities.

“I don’t want banana bread,” he says in a tone that suggested this conversation was over. FRIDAY accepts her fate and falls quite, at least for a moment before his StarkPad pinged beside him, indicating that FRIDAY sent him information of importance. He looks over at the device beside him and rolls his eyes when he sees some paper about restorative justice. But FRIDAY sends seven more papers just to be sure to push his buttons. When he glares at one of her cameras again she leaves him be finally and he returns to Rhdoey’s new suit design.

*

Tony hadn’t wanted anything to do with his banana bread so Bucky ends up staring at it for a solid thirty minutes before FRIDAY suggests eating some of it himself. It seems obvious when she says it but he hadn’t considered the option before. Actually, he couldn’t remember the last time he ate. It must not have been that long ago though- he was familiar with how his body felt when he was starving and his body was only running low on energy due to a lack of caloric intake. The fact that he couldn’t remember his last meal made him nervous thought, because he was unsure what that meant. Or, more accurately, he didn’t want to think about what that meant.

Instead of thinking about the possibility of the Soldier lurking under the surface he picks up a piece of banana bread and takes a bite. His body seems to remember what food is at that exact moment because he wolfs the whole thing down in a matter of minutes. It isn’t until he’s eaten the whole thing that he realizes what he did and then he freezes, unsure how he was to react to this. Unsure of how Tony or FRIDAY would react to this.

“I assume the bread was good, then?” FRIDAY says finally, breaking the silence.

Bucky jumps hard, “I... I suppose,” he says finally, surprised by how uncaring FRIDAY sounded. Back with… with…- they only let him eat what was necessary for him to function at peak and if he ate too little or too much he had hell to pay for it. He had, he supposed, become used to being told when to eat and how much and without that he was a little lost on how to handle his own diet. He knew how to feed himself of course, but when he was out on missions his only instructions as far as diet went were to make sure he was consuming enough to be at peak performance. Now he didn’t need to be at peak performance- did he still need to eat that much? Did he eat more? Less? When did he eat? He hardly knew how normal people did these things.

Eventually he decides to just curl up in bed and fall asleep, annoyed that he had no idea how to work food but at least happy that he did something today. Tomorrow he’d do something too, maybe make some other meal if FRIDAY had any more recipes for him to follow. He sort of liked spending time in the kitchen, things were easier there. All the things he had to do were already laid out for him and that was far simpler than trying to find something to watch on a television with _hundreds_ of channels. He had made the mistake of trying to change the channel from that cooking show FRIDAY put on to something else and quickly balked at the vast array of options.

FRIDAY had rapidly changed it back for him and he sat there for a few long moments, shivering until the methodical nature of the cooking had calmed him. It had structure, a plan that he wasn’t to deviate from, that was easy enough. More of the same really, but not with the… other parts that he didn’t like. The end bits always seemed to have the cook sharing the food though, and because Bucky didn’t really have anyone he decided to ask FRIDAY about Tony. It had taken her a long time to answer but it turned out he wasn’t interested and then Bucky had gone back to being lost until FRIDAY suggested he eat the bread.

Despite the hiccups throughout the day he thought it went well and this was something he could do- cook. Plus it tasted good in the end. “Hey FRIDAY? Do you have any other good recipes?” he asks the AI somewhat hesitantly. Tony had long ago made a flippant remark or two about FRIDAY being a tool he could use but FRIDAY seemed more Tony’s than his own and he felt guilty using Tony’s tools after what he has done to the man. But FRIDAY was helpful today and Bucky liked the extra guidance. He could feel guilty about his using the tools one of his victims made later.

“Do you like meat?” FRIDAY asks.

“Yeah it’s okay,” he says. He didn’t get a choice in what he ate normally, so he’d eat whatever FRIDAY told him to, but he didn’t think he’d have to eat it again if he didn’t care for it like he had with… with…

“Fantastic. I have a recipe for you,” the AI tells him and Bucky chooses to focus on that rather than the bad memories buzzing around his head, threatening to escape.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay! Sorry this took so long to update. As you all know I have been a busy bee, so finding time has been a pain and then I wrote a few oneshots so. Too many ideas too little time :)
> 
> But I got his done so here you all go! Enjoy :)

After the fifth fucking invitation that week Tony finally breaks. He read the literature FRIDAY sent him on restorative justice and he got the AI thought that was for him, hell, maybe it was. But he had no desire to spend any time with Bucky fucking Barnes or his psycho alter ego.

Enter Bucky asking five hundred times if he wanted whatever he had cooked that day. So far there was that damn banana bread, stew, some type of cookie Tony hadn’t paid attention to, something that involved cheese, and now it was pulled pork. He had had enough of this so he was going to Barnes and telling him to leave him the hell alone. FRIDAY had warned against doing that but FRIDAY also thought he should cuddle up with the guy and talk about his feelings so there was clearly something wrong with her code.

He makes his way down to Bucky’s space in the elevator fully prepared to tell him off and go back to his own life without having to spend any time worrying about being asked to eat food or whatever. That isn’t exactly what happens though.

When the elevator doors open Bucky has the pulled pork on a bun sitting on a plate already so he sort of holds it out in Tony’s direction. “Pulled pork isn’t going to make up for killing my parents,” he says bluntly, stepping around Barnes and into the apartment. The bonus to this mess was that he built this place. He probably knew more about it than Bucky considering he stuck very much to the bedroom, the bathroom, and recently the kitchen and attached living room. Tony wasn’t even sure if he knew there were two other bedrooms in here. He figured he’d make extra space for Steve and maybe Natasha given how much the two were together these days. Besides, it just made sense to him to have extra space.

For a moment the hurt look on Bucky’s face actually makes him feel something but he quickly tells his brain to shove it. Why the hell should he pity this guy anyways? “I… that isn’t what I was trying to do. I just had extra and I don’t know, I guess I thought I’d share? Technically it’s your food…” Bucky says trailing off and looking away.

“It isn’t my food, its in your house,” Tony says.

“But you bought it, you’ve bought everything in here and I don’t get it. You don’t want anything to do with me, or have an interest in my trying to share with you because you’re mad about your parents and I understand that. But then why did you do all this for me? Why have you shared your space, money, and other resources with me? You’re trying to help me and you’ve done it a few times. You were the one who told me it was okay to not let people in if I didn’t want to and that they should listen to me. Steve doesn’t listen to me and he’s my best friend. I just… why do you have more compassion for me than almost anyone else when you hate me?” Bucky asks, frowning as his brows draw together. He’s still looking at the floor like he’s afraid to look up or something.

“I don’t have compassion for you, I just don’t think you should be treated as subhuman. To be honest I don’t care if you were but I’m not going to do that myself. Besides, as much as I hate to admit it- and I _do_ hate to admit it- you’ve been through hell and back. You need the help and I owe it to you after I tried to kill you.” Even if he still wanted to kill Bucky. He’s had time to think about it though and it would be at least a little hypocritical to want to kill Bucky for killing his parents. Plus it was a bit cruel to kill a man when he wasn’t actually in control of his actions. Bucky’s alter ego, though…

“You tried to kill me because you watched me kill your parents. I… I don’t really remember much of my life before… before. But I do remember a few things- like how much I cared about Steve. I used to get into fights all the time because he couldn’t keep his opinions to himself. If someone killed him… Well, I can’t blame you for doing something I would have done too,” he says.

“Except if someone killed of Steve they wouldn’t have done it knowing that that person had been tortured into that position. You didn’t have a choice,” Tony points out. It made the situation completely different.

“So? What kind of emotionless ass could watch their parents get murdered and not care?” Bucky asks, nose wrinkling in distaste. Tony finds this version of Bucky odd in comparison to his almost predatory counterpart. That version had almost stalked him as he moved, eyes tracking his movements and ears trying to pick up on anything that he found interesting. His gaze was shrewd and focused. This Bucky was far less put together, less confident, and certainly more broken.

“Someone with though compassion to know that you weren’t exactly in a position to not murder my parents. I might hate you for it- probably always will- but I can’t deny that it was an asshole move to try and kill you. Not reacting wouldn’t have made me emotionless, it would have made me rational and sympathetic.” Not the kinds of things he was known for really, he’s never been the kind of guy to do well with emotions no matter how hard he’s tried- as Pepper- and rationality… He was only good at that if it was scientific.

“I think you’d have to be a horrible person to watch the people close to you die and not react the way you did,” Bucky says softly, “no one who actually feels things could ever look past their own pain to see someone else’s. Steve didn’t when he tried to kill you, why don’t you think that matters?” he asks.

“We weren’t talking about Steve. And if you feel that way why did you fight back? If you felt so guilty or whatever- I think I remember you saying that you remembered them. Why hit back if you thought you had it coming?” It’s been bothering him for a long time now and he figured now was as good a time as any to ask.

Bucky looks back towards the ground not that his gaze had lifted that high to begin with. “I… it’s hard sometimes to do things. I get confused and I don’t know what to do and it’s just easier to go with what’s happening around me. I’m not trying to make excuses or anything like that I just… when Steve threw that shield into you and it bounced off and back to me I panicked. I just… I just threw it back and started fighting because I didn’t know what to do and then Steve was yelling at me to get out and you were going after me and… and it was easier to follow the only orders I had. I’m sorry,” Bucky murmurs, eyes still on the floor.

It made sense in a weird sort of way but… “why didn’t the Winter Soldier take over? Seems like a pretty reasonable time to come out and play,” Tony points out. From his observations via FRIDAY the alter ego seemed to show up in weak moments- Tony saw that first hand a couple times. Wanda, he was pretty sure, also detected it when Bucky had left and came back that one night and his mind was different.

At this Bucky’s head snaps up, “what?” he asks, going a shade or two paler.

“The Winter Soldier, I know he’s still in there I had a conversation with him last week. Why didn’t he pop up to save your ass?” They shared a body; it seemed reasonable that the one who was presumably better at fighting would take over even if he didn’t consider the emotional stress.

“You… you what?” Bucky asks in a tone so low Tony barely heard it.

“I had a conversation with him. You know, that thing you do with words that we’re doing right now,” he says sarcastically.

“What did he say?” Bucky asks softly. He looks horrified, like he’s expecting the worst and maybe he should be.

“He doesn’t feel all that guilty for killing my parents for one. Howard I get, he’s a piece of shit and your alter ego wasn’t wrong about that. But his twisted views on why my mother deserved to die were just a _tad_ offensive.” _Or maybe you’re just a sad little boy who convinced himself mommy really did love him because it makes you feel better_. The words stuck and Tony hadn’t wanted them to. His mom did the best she could given the circumstances, Howard too even if his best sucked. But his mom… there wasn’t much she could do with a man as powerful as Howard working against her. He would have destroyed her if she had tried anything, shit; he destroyed her on a regular basis for _not_ doing anything against him. She was stuck in a horrible situation and that wasn’t her fault.

 _Or you’re just a sad little boy who convinced himself_ \- Tony cuts the thought off there. It didn’t deserve the attention he was giving it. “Out of curiosity do you feel the same way? Don’t worry- your alternate self was already as offensive as you could get, agreeing wouldn’t make you look like that much more of an ass.” It absolutely would, and it would make him feel far more uncomfortable in his own home, but he needed to know.

Bucky looks downright horrified, “of course I don’t! They were innocent people, what I did was horrible!” he says. Tony believes it too- he might not be the best at reading people but Bucky’s wide eyes, pale skin, and upset demeanor were pretty easy indicators of guilt.

“I still want nothing to do with your pulled pork,” he says.

*

Steve still showed up semi frequently but Bucky mostly ignored him. FRIDAY still alerted Bucky to his presence but he almost never responded, which he figured the AI took as a sign that he wasn’t interested and since Steve never appeared in his apartment he assumed she sent him away. But when he shows back up Bucky knows that he needs to talk to people more. His therapist encouraged him to reach out, make friends and such. He usually let Wanda in when she came over but she hasn’t been around a lot and he didn’t think his turbulent conversation with Tony counted as socialization.

He wanted to talk to Tony more, to explain that whatever the Soldier said wasn’t true, that he wasn’t Bucky but he didn’t think Tony would listen. He wouldn’t listen. The Soldier still lingers at the back of his mind, Bucky could feel him there, but he ignored him and shoved him down as far as possible. Keeping busy helped a lot, which was why he said that he’d go for lunch with Steve. He figured that maybe reaching out to old friends might be a good way to follow his therapist’s advice. Maybe he judged Steve too harshly, it wasn’t like he was thinking right.

Two hours later he wasn’t so sure. Bucky didn’t remember a lot from before but his memories of Steve were pretty clear, at least in comparison to the rest of his memories. He remembered Steve who was compassionate, always trying to help people who were in crappier positions than his own. And his passion- Bucky remembered that the clearest. Steve’s passion was bright and strong; he was always so defiant, so ready to fight any injustice he saw.

This Steve though, he was so… _measured_. He could see Steve assessing everything, examining his reactions, looking for something there and Bucky wasn’t sure if he was finding it. He wasn’t sure he cared if Steve found what he was looking for or not. Finally, though, Steve asks whatever question he’s been looking for an answer to. “Are you… do you… do you remember me much? You don’t seem to,” Steve says in a measured tone, cautious. The old Steve would have been up front and blunt about it, he found no use for pretending to be something you weren’t.

“I remember you fine. I’m just not sure I like the new you,” he says honestly. This seems to throw Steve for a loop.

“Buck, I’m the same guy I’ve always been, you know that,” he says, leaning forward a little as if closing in on his space would make him agree. Bucky presses further back into his own seat even though there was still a table between them.

“No you aren’t. I know that because you never used to tell me what I do and don’t know. You asked how I felt,” he says. “You… you used to have so much passion and life and fight and all of that is gone. Its like all of that went away when you got injected with that stupid serum,” he mumbles. His memories of Steve after were hazier but things changed. Suddenly Steve was a leader and it was like… like he stopped remembering what it was like to have to fight to have your voice heard. People started listening to him because he was in a good position and then he sort of expected people to listen. Steve, his Steve, was a natural leader and Bucky liked that because he wasn’t afraid to speak his mind, but he wasn’t afraid to ask someone else to speak theirs either. After the serum though… he lost that.

And this guy, the one in front of him, it was like he was an imposter wearing Steve’s appearance. Bucky remembered Steve but this guy wasn’t him.

“What do you mean?” Steve asks him, sitting back in his seat and slumping a little.

For the first time since he’s been out of HYDRA control and back with Steve he resembled his old self rather than the new and refined Captain America. Bucky takes a moment to gather his thoughts and he’s almost surprised that Steve lets him, waiting patiently for his response.

“Before the serum you used to fight for justice, for what was right. You were always on about something,” Bucky says, smiling slightly at the memories of finding Steve in some back ally trying to fight someone off again. “But now you fight for what _you_ think is right.” It was an important distinction to Bucky.

“Isn’t that the same thing?” Steve asks, frowning.

“No. Before all this you knew what it was like to not have power, to have people not listen to you and you fought like hell to make sure people listened because you wanted to see people treated right. And you do that now, but you stopped doing that because you knew you no one would listen unless you shouted. Now you do it because you think you know best even if people are telling you you’re wrong. Like when I kept telling you to back off the last time we saw each other. You thought I needed comfort the way you assumed it should be delivered, even when I told you not to do that. You would have listened before because you knew what it was like when people didn’t listen to you, but now you assume that what you think is right is right even if someone is telling you you’re wrong. I don’t like it; you’re not the person I remember. You’re not my Steve,” Bucky says, finally putting words to his emotions. His therapist told him to do that too, and to talk about stuff but he wasn’t sure how and he didn’t know who to talk to.

Steve, for his part, looks like someone slapped him in the face hard. Bucky squirms uncomfortably because he hadn’t wanted to make Steve feel bad; he just wanted to say how he felt.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for mentions of domestic violence, child abuse, torture, and I think that's it. If not let me know and I'll add it in.

Wanda at least accepts the offers for food and even helps Bucky cook sometimes. Tony was still leery of him and on the rare occasions when they met Bucky got narrowed eyed looks. It made him nervous to know that he talked to the Soldier, and it hurt to know that the Soldier didn’t feel guilty for killing Tony’s parents.

 _As if you got_ no _enjoyment out of killing off Howard Stark. The man was a piece of shit_.

Bucky ignores the voice in his head, shaking it a little before returning his attention to the pasta he was cooking. Something Italian that Tony liked, or so FRIDAY said. He wondered if the AI had an ulterior motive of if she was just most familiar with what Tony ate and therefore looked up recipes for those specific meals.

“What was that?” Wanda asks, drawing his attention away from trying to make the peppers he was cutting cooperate.

“What was what?” he asks even though he has a good idea of what she was talking about.

“I… I don’t mean to intrude, I’m not trying to listen to anything in your head but sometimes I just hear things. It’s like smelling food when you walk into a room, I can’t help it. But sometimes I can hear things from your mind, almost like someone else is there but that isn’t how minds work,” Wanda says, frowning slightly.

He considers her question for a long few moments, chopping peppers while he thought of how to answer. Wanda… she wasn’t his psychiatrist so she wouldn’t judge him the same way, wouldn’t try to stick him on some medication that would make him feel weird. He was surprised she hadn’t tried that already but she seemed more content to talk about things not that he did much talking. Mostly she took up the time, looking ecstatic whenever he spoke. He still didn’t trust her much even if following her advice was actually working.

“I don’t know,” he says eventually. The statement is half true- he was unsure of the Soldier and his presence. All he knew was that one day it was just him in there and then there was the Soldier too. Back when… before, it was easier to let the Soldier take over because he didn’t need to think and feel like Bucky did. He was all cool calculation and murder while Bucky was all empathy and guilt.

“That’s only half true,” Wanda says, probably picking it out of his mind by accident. “I won’t judge you it’s just… that other voice, the other _mind_ , it scares me. You are warm, but scared and nervous. That other part of you though, I’ve never felt a mind like that and I’m not sure what to make of it. How… how do you um… deal with it?” she asks.

“I don’t mostly. He comes and goes, keeping busy mostly keeps him away. He’s who I used to be when-” his voice sticks for a moment and he clears his throat. “He’s the Winter Soldier,” he says simply. It was the easiest way to explain his alter ego.

Wanda sucks in a breath, “does Tony know?” she asks, sounding strangely concerned.

“Yes. I don’t know why you care though, you don’t like him.” It isn’t meant to sound cruel, he was simply stating facts. Wanda seemed to actively dislike Tony and Bucky couldn’t figure out why. Tony was nothing but nice to her aside from a few snide comments when pressed in what Bucky knew were sore spots. His parents were one of those spots, Steve was another.

“I don’t but… he should know that there is a very real chance that his parents murderer is underneath him. When did he find out?” Wanda asks.

“Couple weeks ago. Apparently he’s had whole conversations with the Soldier. I really wish he hadn’t.” The Soldier was horrible and he wished that he could take Tony’s conversation with him back so he could actually move on from his parents’ deaths. Bucky knew how hard it was to loose someone you loved, more so when it was rubbed in your face every day. It was how he felt about Steve. He has long since missed that skinny kid from Brooklyn who was too damn dumb to back down from a fight. Something happened when he was injected with that serum and Bucky didn’t like it at all. It was like Steve lost himself and became someone new so he understood how Tony felt, at least in a way, about having to be reminded of what he lost whenever he had to look at Bucky.

Wanda swears under her breath, “shit. Does Steve know?” she asks.

“No, and please don’t tell him. I don’t even know what’s going on with him anymore.” It was hard to tell where he stood with anyone, but most of all Steve. Tony he at least knew disliked him, Wanda seemed okay with his presence, but Steve seemed to expect him to be someone else. Someone Bucky wasn’t even sure existed even before this whole mess.

“He told me some of it, and I picked up other bits. Are you alright?” Wanda asks gently. He can feel that she cares in the tone of her voice so he turns slowly to face her. She looks open, concerned about him and probably for good reason.

“I’m okay,” he says eventually because he’s unsure how to say that he isn’t. He can feel the Soldier clawing at the back of his mind, growing stronger and he wasn’t sure he’d be able to keep fighting him off.

*

Tony sits on the floor with Rhodey, who was now sweating and looking annoyed. “I hate physical therapy,” he says eventually.

“I know honeybee, but it’s important for circulation and stuff plus its good for your muscles. But you’re done now, so there’s that,” he says. He knew how much Rhodey hated being reminded that he was dependent on Tony now but Tony didn’t mind. There wasn’t much he could do for Rhodey but money? He had lots of that to spare and he was more than happy to give Rhodey what he needed to be comfortable.

Rhodey sits back some and sighs, “I know, I know. I just wish some days that I had my legs back. Yesterday some lady came up to me and called me brave but didn’t have an actual reason for it considering she obviously didn’t recognize me. Guess having a life outside the home in a wheelchair makes me brave now. What am I supposed to do? Shrivel up and die in my house? I thought being black sucked but being black in a wheelchair is worse,” he mumbles, shaking his head.

“Does that ever bother you, that people don’t recognize you? I mean you’re also a hero flying around in a tin can, people notice me when I do it,” Tony says, attempting at lighthearted to cheer Rhodey up some.

He snorts, “yeah, you always get all the attention and fame and no one cares about me. Asshole,” Rhodey says, smiling at him just a little so Tony knows he’s joking.

“It’s not my fault I’m prettier,” Tony says with a grin.

“In your dreams, I’m clearly the better looking one.”

“Uh, who’s won sexiest man alive like seven times?” Tony asks, raising an eyebrow.

“It’s eleven and I know you know that because you mail a copy of the cover you land on to Hammer every time you win. And you sent all your Nobel Prize nominations to Richards because you’re a petty asshole,” Rhodey says. He smiles fondly at Tony though, familiar with all his weird quirks and kinks.

“I should start sending them to Pym too considering he told Scott I have no conscience because my father didn’t. Asshole. As if he has a right to talk about a conscience given his own record,” Tony mumbles. Rhodey raises an eyebrow so Tony briefly explains what happened at the airport.

“Pym- as in _Hank_ Pym?” Rhodey asks. Tony nods, “wasn’t he publically arrested for domestic violence like five times?” Tony nods again and Rhodey rolls his eyes, “that guy needs some basic Googling skills and some common sense reasoning skills.”

“So does the lady who thinks you’re brave for existing,” Tony says and they burst out laughing.

*

The Solder enjoys the feel of the wind on his face. Bucky might put on a brave face but one too many rejections from Stark broke him just enough for the Soldier to creep out. It was for the best, really, all Bucky did was cook all day in an attempt to not feel anything. _Boring_. He at least had a life even if it was the kind that involved skulking around at night looking for trouble. He itched for excitement, for something to punch. So much of his time used to be spent tracking people down, watching them and waiting for the right moment to strike. He missed it even if he could have done without the handlers and innocent targets.

Targets like Stark, though, he didn’t mind them. Even Bucky would quite some when they both watched Howard hit Tony again, or his wife, and both of them would still vie for the man’s attention. God knew why- that asshole only cared about himself and the Soldier half wished he could kill him again. He knew more about Stark now, knew how oddly generous he was, how much of his father’s influence he managed to shake. He had a lot of respect for someone who managed to turn out good despite all of that. He knew what it was like to have someone try and mold him into the perfect mirror of what someone else wanted, even if it was less being smacked around and more electroshock therapy. In the end he turned into a monster and Stark, he was a hero of some pretty impressive proportions.

If he had watched a man kill Steve- back when he was still Steve- he sure as hell wouldn’t let that guy live with him. Unless it was so that he could snap his neck in his sleep and dispose of the body properly. Yet Stark let him stay in his house, he always had groceries, he wasn’t expected to pay rent, he got therapy not that Bucky or the Soldier wanted anything to do with that. All the while Stark claimed to the Soldier even if he was mostly indifferent to Bucky. Hate was a strange way to describe the relationship they currently had. The Soldier had no idea what to make of the kindness Stark gave to him.

He knew what hate was like, Stark didn’t hate him at all because if he did there would be hell to pay. Luckily the Soldier was used to torture if Stark ever decided to try his hand at it.

“Bucky,” someone- Stark- calls and the Soldier turns mostly because he didn’t have any other name to go by.

“What is it, pretty boy? I have places to be so make it quick,” he says.

Tony stops short, looking him up and down. The Soldier notices his hand inch towards his belt on the left side but he doesn’t note anything of importance on the belt. That didn’t mean nothing was there- this was Tony Stark, if he managed to build a suit to get out of a cave out or scraps he could be hiding something by his belt line. “You aren’t Bucky,” he states more than asks.

“How astute,” the Soldier drawls, “spit out whatever it is you want to say.”

“Tell Bucky to stop trying to feed me. I don’t want his food.”

“Your food,” the Soldier corrects, earning a frown from Tony. “You buy it, he’s only offering you a piece of what’s yours. He makes good pasta, you should try some.” There was some left over in the fridge that he was absolutely eating later before Bucky found his way back to the surface and smothered him out again.

“Whatever,” Tony mumbles eventually, “tell him to stop it.”

“Fine. Out of curiosity have you thought about what I said the last time we talked? Have a counter argument?” He was curious to see what kind of mental backflips Tony would go through to make sure his mother was worthy of her life. it would be interesting to watch.

“I don’t need to explain myself to you,” Tony says, head tilted up in defiance.

“I’ll take that as a no. It’s flattering to know you think of me sometimes,” he says, grinning.

Tony wrinkles his nose hard, “ugh, it’s hardly in a flattering way. I hate you, no need to feel warm and fuzzy about it.”

“Stark, if this is hate I don’t even _want_ to know what HYDRA thought of me. As far as I’m concerned this is living in the lap of luxury and if you’re going to claim giving me a new lease on life is hate, well, I encourage you to continue,” he says, grinning before he turns around and walks off. 


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lets just casually ignore all the overused tropes here... 
> 
> There's a whole chapter of Tony/ Soldier for you guys though! And the next chapter will have some Tony/ Bucky!
> 
> Warnings for some mentions of torture and violence, though nothing too gory. There's also mentions of child abuse. If something else needs to be added let me know.

When the lightning and thunder rolls in Tony doesn’t think anything of it- even when FRIDAY warns him that the storm was going to be particularly bad. Eventually he surfaces from the workshop when lights begin to flicker because it’s a safety issue to remain there, not that he particularly wanted to resurface. He was still having trouble dealing with his last encounter with whatever the hell Bucky’s alter ego called itself.

_Stark, is this is hate I don’t even_ want _to know what HYDRA thought of me_.

It was a sharp reminder of what had happened to the man, though Tony assumed for whatever reason that the alter ego hadn’t suffered any. _I don’t even_ want _to know what HYDRA thought of me_. He had looked almost smug when he said it but Tony could see the tension around his eyes, the way his shoulders tensed some as the words came out. Symptoms of anxiety were things he was familiar with, he just hadn’t expected them to present in his parents’ murderer. Tony was aware of at least some of the things HYDRA had done- and he’s seen what they did to Wanda. She was still messed up over it and she volunteered in a bizarre attempt to get back at him for his own role in her parents’ death. Bucky wasn’t exactly willing and his other half… Tony didn’t know about him… it? Whatever.

Sheets of rain keep hitting the windows around him so he instructs FRIDAY to turn on some music so he can concentrate more on his designs and less on Bucky and his other personality or whatever he might call it. It doesn’t work very well as the lights continue to flicker and annoy him. Usually this didn’t happen- the benefits of being a talented engineer- but he’s been working on updating his systems slowly so some things weren’t wired right or at all. “FRIDAY, how long is the stupid storm supposed to last?” he asks, irritated.

“Until morning if the Weather Network is correct,” FRIDAY tells him. He makes an annoyed noise and glares at his designs for a moment before FRIDAY speaks again. “You may want to check on Bucky, sir, he does not appear to be handling the storm well.”

Tony rolls his eyes because of _course_ he isn’t and who else was there to deal with him but Tony? “Fine, whatever, I’ll go check on him before the power cuts out completely,” he mumbles, “give him a warning, will ya?” he tells the AI as he picks himself up off his couch.

*

The Soldier sits on the couch with his head buried in his knees trying to avoid the loud noises and flickering lights. Of course Bucky has vacated the premises- he was only ever around to claim his independence and flee at the first sight of something frightening. So now the Soldier was stuck dealing with the loud claps of thunder and the ensuing flickering lights like he didn’t have flashbacks too. He hears the elevator- h always heard the things moving around in this building- but all rational thought leaves his mind when lightning strikes close by, making the ensuing thunder louder. He grits his teeth and tries to ignore the lights when they flicker than go out- effectively making the space dead quite, at least until the thunder hits again.

He forgets about the elevator until he hears someone banging on the door and remembers something, vaguely, about that AI saying someone was coming down. Bucky’s memories are hazy though, and his own ability to concentrate wasn’t good so he just stumbles over to the doors to focus on something else. “Let me out, let me out!” someone- no, Stark- shouts while slamming on the door. Shit, right, he was probably in the elevator when the power cut out. Made him wonder why Stark didn’t have a contingency plan- he was pretty creative if memory served him right. He ignores that in favor of getting a grip on the doors to the elevator though, it gave him something besides the thunder to focus on.

Stark all but tosses himself out as soon as he pries the doors open enough for him to squeeze through and the Soldier has to catch him. The elevator hadn’t left much room for Stark to squeeze through, it hadn’t landed fully on his floor yet, but he managed anyways. Tony squirms near immediately to be put down and the Soldier obliges, dropping him a little away from the elevator before leaning against the wall to catch his breath a little. “Next time you might want to take the stairs, huh?” he says when he has enough air to.

“Fuck you,” Stark spits out, looking pale and shaky.

“You okay? Pretty sure you’ve lost weight since the last time I saw you,” he says, looking Stark over. He actually did look thinner, and there was grease on his cheek and in his hair.

“What the hell do you care? It isn’t like my weight matters to you,” he snaps. He at least looks like he had gained some control over himself though he was still too pale and his hands were still shaking.

“Actually it does. You’re paying for me to be here, I need you in good health,” he points out. Simple logic- if Tony’s health went down hill he’d be stuck in a hospital and try as Bucky might he was _not_ keeping the Soldier from busting out of there. He knew what hospitals were like, he didn’t need a reminder.

“Yeah, really wish someone else would fund your existence,” Tony mumbles. He shifts a bit, sitting up straighter and looking over at the open elevator doors. The Soldier moves to close them before Tony got any wild ideas- from what he’s seen Tony was full of them.

“I’d rather not. I’m not fond of Steve so I’d rather not stay with him, and Wanda stays with him so even if I wanted to stay with her I’d still get stuck with Steve. Pretty sure no one else wants me and I’m _not_ going to a hospital.” He didn’t even like going to the shrink but Bucky was all for it now that he tested like two pieces of advice and found they worked. The Soldier would call that a coincidence buy Bucky thought it was a cure. Fucking idiot.

“So what? You’d rather stay with a guy that doesn’t give a damn about you?” Tony asks, eyebrows drawing together into a frown.

“I told you before Stark, I know what hate looks like. This isn’t it. You can claim to hate me all you want but I use evidence-based reasoning- there is no evidence you hate me at all. Or that you even dislike me. It’s all talk, literally.”

At that Tony’s head snaps up, “wait, who the hell am I talking to?” he asks.

“Not Bucky. He doesn’t like the loud noise and flickering lights so I get stuck dealing with it,” he says just as another clap of thunder hits. He jumps a little without meaning to and clenches his jaw. He had no desire to seem weak to Stark or anyone else for that matter. He isn’t weak, he is strong, he isn’t like Bucky.

“You don’t seem to like them much either,” Tony points out. Yeah, because he was actually _there_ when the lights would flicker, and the guns…

They needed their Soldiers trained and what better way to do it than to use their best and brightest? He also happened to be the most expendable to HYDRA too. But the other Soldiers, they were out of control and five against one, well, he had no clue how he even managed to make it out. So many doctors died, usually snapped necks or being tossed into things too hard. Truth be told they did the things he wanted to but he couldn’t, his conditioning kept him from acting on his impulses unless it directly affected his mission in a positive way. His mission was to make sure the top handler didn’t die so that meant causing trouble was out of the question. But the damage… all the guns, the blood, the sound of snapping bones and screaming and guns going off. The lightning reminded him of all of that and he didn’t like it any more than Bucky but he didn’t get a choice to vacate the premises like Bucky did. And then Bucky complained about him. The _nerve_.

“Jesus,” Tony says, drawing the Soldier away from his thoughts. “You remember that?” he asks. It takes a second for the Soldier to realize he must have said all of that out loud and he clenches his jaw again. He hadn’t wanted to say any of that out loud.

“Of course I do. I remember everything, all of it. Bucky is the one with the luxury of forgetting,” he says, his lip curling in disgust. “He thinks he knows everything but he doesn’t even know the half of it. And he never will if I have anything to say about it.”

Tony frowns at him, head cocked to the side, “why not? You don’t seem to like him much. If you managed to like… I don’t know, send him into a mental break or something wouldn’t that give you more control?” Tony asks.

“Aw, you want me around more. That’s sweet of you,” he says just to watch Tony’s face twist in disgust.

“That is not what I meant and you know it,” Tony snaps.

“Fine. So it isn’t. But to answer your question no, Bucky is already broken beyond repair. There isn’t anything I can do that’ll make him worse than he already is and… and there are some things no one should ever have to deal with, no matter how much I hate him for making me be the one to deal with all of his shit.” It comes out softer than he means it to, giving the statement the impression that he cared about Bucky when he didn’t. Not really anyways, not like Tony cared about him contrary to the man’s own words.

“So you protect him is what you’re saying,” Tony says.

“No, I don’t care about Bucky. I just don’t want him to go do something stupid with the body I also happen to reside in. This is prime real estate, good looking, young, strong, could use my left arm back but most people find it kind of hot anyways so. Point is, I like this body and I’m not going to have Bucky go do something stupid with it because he remembered some things he doesn’t need to know. As much as he hates it I live here too, and I like it here.” Unlike Bucky, who basically squandered his existence by watching fucking cooking shows and hanging out with a goddamn voice system and a telepath. FRIDAY was boring and that telepath was just too damn close to him mind for the Soldier’s liking.

“Yeah, pretty sure you’re the only one who likes you. But you’re still protecting Bucky. You already pointed out he couldn’t get worse than before and you seem to have an awful lot of control given that I talk to you more than Bucky. It’d serve you well to put him in a weakened state considering stress seems to activate your presence. Don’t shake your head at me, I use evidence based reasoning and your words aren’t matching up with your actions,” Stark says, throwing his own words back at him. _Asshole_.

“You talk to me more out of pure coincidence. He’s been more himself all week than not and yet you consistently run into me. Good for me, I like you, you’ve got… something about you,” he says, tilting his head to the side and examining Tony. His heartbeat picks up- likely out of fear- but he doesn’t look afraid at all. In fact his head tilts up some and he holds eye contact with the Soldier, all but daring him to try something. There was a fire there, a passion that the Soldier was oddly attracted to. It wasn’t a feeling he was familiar with, whatever it was he felt for Stark, but he wanted more of it. He wanted to know more about that passion, that defiance, he wanted to know what made Tony function. It was odd considering he was usually more interested in what took people apart, not what they used to put themselves together.

“You are nothing like your father,” he says after a few long, tense moments.

This, for some reason, seems to throw Tony for a loop. “You’d be the first to say that,” he says and the Soldier frowns.

“I watched him for weeks you know, the perfect time to strike doesn’t come over night. I know his mannerisms well and you are nothing like him. He was weak, pathetic; it’s why he hit you. He needed to feel power over anything he deemed lesser because he felt powerless himself. But you, you don’t do that. You have so much power but you know that it isn’t fair, so you try your best to distribute it. That’s why you donate all that money, hmm? Why you agreed with the Accords even if it cost you more than it gave you, and why you choose to keep me around. Your father could have learned a lot from someone like you,” he says. They might share a lot of traits, but they didn’t share any that mattered in the long run. It was intriguing to the Soldier because he was used to being exactly what his handlers expected of him. How did Stark escape that?

“I donate money because people deserve it, I agreed with the Accords because it was the right thing to do, and I keep you here because I have just a shred of compassion for your counterpart. You’re the one guilty of the crime I tried to kill you for, not him. So I don’t really think you have a place to judge the morality of someone else,” Tony says. That fire in his eyes is back, that defiance. He looked prepared to fight the Soldier on it and he liked that, liked that Tony didn’t back down, that he wasn’t afraid in any sense other than the very physical. So his heart rate picked up- it hardly mattered when he was so willing to ignore his body’s reactions. That was a foreign concept to the Soldier, who knew very well that his body was telling him things for a reason. Why would Tony ignore his own instincts?

“Maybe I don’t have a place to judge. But I needed a lab to turn me into a monster- your father was born that way. It’s nice to know why you really keep me here though. Guilt- misplaced guilt at that. I killed your parents; you have a right to hate me for it, a right to want me dead. No need to feel guilty for trying to kill me- something most anyone would do in your situation.” If someone had seen a video of their parent’s murder and _not_ wanted the person who did it dead in that moment than the Soldier would suspect something. Observation has told him that when people attacked close friends, family members, and pets they reacted terribly. Usually there was violence or some other strong emotional response. If there wasn’t the Soldier knew immediately that something was off about the situation. Even Stark had begged for his wife to be spared in his last moments and he was the scum of the earth.

“I shouldn’t have attacked… Bucky I guess. I don’t even know who or what you are. He didn’t have a choice,” Tony says.

“And you think _I_ did? Don’t be stupid Stark, I might be a cold, callus sonofabitch but I didn’t have free will until you gave it to me. And I call myself the Soldier, it’s what they called me so I guess that’s my name.” He certainly wasn’t Bucky anyways.

“Thanks,” Tony mumbles after another long tense moment in which the thunder made him jump twice against his will.

“For what?” he asks through gritted teeth.

“For not hating me for trying to kill you. You should, you know. Everyone else does.”

“Everyone else is a bunch of assholes. Steve goes around being angry with you for trying to kill someone you watched kill your parents- whom you loved for some unknown reason- and ignores the fact that he nearly killed you because he freaked out watching you try to kill me because he cares about me. It’s the same fucking thing. He… he never use to be like that, he used to be… he used to be more like you,” he says eventually. He can feel Bucky there, making that realization with him. The old Steve was defiant, passionate, a rule breaker, he was rude even, and he wasn’t afraid to get hurt. And now… now he was some of those things, but twisted, not at all like Tony, who was more like Steve than Steve was now.

Tony starts laughing, and then he continues laughing for an uncomfortable amount of time. “Fuck off, that isn’t true, he says between fits of laughter.

“It is so. He used to get into fights _all the time_ ; always yelling about what he thought was right regardless of what everyone else thought. And he hated rules and regulations; he used to be so damn careless about everything. What kind of idiot joins the army with heart problems and an inability to breath right? And oh, if you tried to argue with him about what he thought was right watch out, he’d go on for _days_ if you let him. He was so passionate back then, always so willing to do whatever it took to do what was right, even if it cost him his life. He didn’t care as long as he was part of something bigger. I see more of that in you now than him. Back then when he apposed people it was because they were wrong, now he just doesn’t like people who disagree with him no matter how wrong or right anyone is. And he’s so controlled and measured. It’s like he’s an alien,” he says. He has been ever since that damn serum. Bucky might be nostalgic about his former best friend but he was right too- there was a lot about Steve that simply isn’t there anymore.

“Wow, if only Howard could see this shit right now. I spent my whole god damn life trying to live up to that asshole only to find out he was a massive disappointment. I gave up on my pipe dreams of ever being anything like him only to be constantly compared to him in adulthood and hated because I still don’t measure up. And now his former best friend’s alter ego tells me I’m more like him than he is. Jesus fucking Christ, how did this get to be my life?” Tony asks, shaking his head with a smile on his face. The smile is fake though, more like he was baring his teeth than smiling. “Don’t go fooling yourself though, I’m nothing like Steve now or then. I’m arrogant, self centered, rude, reckless, and a laundry list of other defective character traits. And when I mess up the world has hell to pay, literally. I might hate Steve but he at least knows when to stop. I could take a lesson or ten.”

This confuses the Soldier but everything about Tony did. “Wanda and Steve have both implied your arrogance- that you deem yourself so important that only you can either destroy things or fix them. But they also tell me that you have done both of those things consistently. It’s like they’re blaming you for believing the evidence that you’re both very good at messing things up and at fixing them. And Steve- he doesn’t know when to stop at all. He dropped the Accords and all the people dependent on his services as a hero and a public figure to chase me down all because he’s nostalgic about a man who doesn’t even exist anymore. The Bucky he knows is gone, and the Steve Bucky knew is also gone. Bucky might be a fool but at least he isn’t so blinded by his own nostalgia that he failed over a hundred countries. And they have all had hell to pay for it. You aren’t the only one who is destructive.”

And that didn’t include all of Steve’s ignoring that Bucky wasn’t Bucky anymore- even when he stopped speaking to Bucky all together. Stark- who claimed to hate his guts- noticed the shift in his behavior near right away and discovered the Soldier all before Steve even realized the Bucky he was looking for died in the Alps. Maybe Stark was a worse hero than Steve- though the Soldier thinks they’re both bad at it- but he was certainly the better friend. He saw what was there, not what he wanted to see.

Tony thinks on that for a moment, a long moment, before he finally speaks. “Am I really like him?” he finally asks and the Soldier shakes his head.

“I don’t understand you. You didn’t like being compared to him as a kid or an adult but here you are seeking validation that you’re like a man you don’t even like. Baffling. To answer your question though, yes. He used to be passionate, brash, probably had too much faith in himself given how often he bit off more than he could chew, but he was determined. I miss all that, and his defiance, I miss that the most. He was always looking to push boundaries, stretch things as far as he could make them go because he wanted to see a better world. A lot of that is gone now, or changed into something similar but different. I see a lot of him in you, even if you aren’t even close to the same,” he says honestly.

Tony was angrier, bitter, and raw but the Soldier recognized all those things because he felt that way too- towards Bucky. Of course he would hate the things that brought him pain and suffering- even if those things were actually people. That was only natural, even if Steve had been far more forgiving than Tony. Or maybe that wasn’t true- Tony seemed happy to defend his parents and happy to avenge them despite their wrongs towards him. Perhaps he was just picky about who he was forgiving towards. The Soldier thought Tony could use a better system of picking who to hate and forgive because right now it sucked.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for some ableist language.

Tony doesn’t mean to fall asleep- normally he wouldn’t be able to- but after the elevator thing and a rather draining conversation with Bucky’s alter ego with no real name he couldn’t help it. And he had been awake for nearly three days straight before that so his body was probably exhausted. When he does wake up, though, it’s to the smell of food.

“I made breakfast!” Bucky- Soldier?- no, definitely Bucky, announces. He holds out a plate with eggs, bacon, and some fruit on it and Tony is _really_ tempted to throw it in his face but Bucky looked so optimistic it would have been like kicking a puppy. Tony has always been known as an asshole but even in the darkest of his days he didn’t kick puppies- or Buckys in this case.

“Didn’t your other personality or whatever tell you not to feed me?” he says instead of smacking the food out of Bucky’s hands. “And how do I know that isn’t poisoned?” For all he knew Bucky was trying to kill him off through some admittedly very odd ways.

Bucky frowns, “no, and why would I try to poison you? You’re nice to me,” he says.

“You need higher standards if you think I am at all pleasant to you. And I still don’t want your food.” Even if it looked and smelled awesome. He had been tempted to buy a bunch of no name stuff just to be an ass but he figured that would likely still be better than whatever HYDRA fed him so he might as well buy Bucky good food.

“But you’re hungry, I can hear your stomach growling,” Bucky says, looking down at Tony’s midsection with clear concern on his face.

“You’re a lot les of an asshole than your other personality. He’s a fucking crotchcricket,” he mumbles. Bucky would hear him no doubt, Steve used to be able to hear everything so Tony figured Bucky would be able to hear just as much given his enhancement.

Bucky lets out a noise that kind of sounds like a laugh and then makes a face, blinking a couple times in confusion. “What was _that_?” he asks as if Tony would even know how to respond to that.

“Pretty sure that was a laugh, have you not laughed before?” he asks more sarcastically than seriously. He knew Bucky has laughed because he’s seen the pictures.

“I don’t think so. Not since before… before,” Bucky says, stuttering the last bit out awkwardly and looking away.

“Oh for fucks sakes, give me the eggs,” Tony tells him, snatching the plate out of his hands and cursing his empathetic abilities. Bucky looks so happy about this development that he spears an egg and grudgingly sticks it in his mouth to eat. The action all but sends Bucky into a tizzy and Tony rolls his eyes openly and in an exaggerated manner to counteract any notions Bucky might have about Tony liking him in any capacity.

*

His accepting Bucky’s god damn food starts a communication line that Tony never even wanted but Bucky- via FRIDAY- spends the next two days asking the most fucking ridiculous questions ever. The first was ‘do cats sweat?’, which was a stupid question Tony had no interest in answering until he spent the next hour thinking about it and could no longer concentrate on his work. So he did a little research and discovered that yes, cats do sweat through their paws but mostly they were just lazy and didn’t do anything in the summer to avoid overheating. Which FRIDAY must have told Bucky because he started asking more quirky questions.

Next up was ‘what the hell is a Nickleback?’, which Tony had been happy to inform him was a shitty Canadian rock band that the Canadians should have kept in their basement with their evil geese. Personally Tony thought they were an insult to the genre, which FRIDAY _also_ told Bucky, which led to him asking what Tony thought good rock was, which led to him explaining all things classic rock. He informed Bucky that AC/DC, and Metalica, Black Sabbath, and a half a dozen other bands were clearly the pinnacle of music. A little over an hour later Bucky tells him his music taste is terrible, which leads to Tony kicking Bucky out of his house.

“Sir, you cannot Bucky out of your house for disliking your music,” FRIDAY tells him.

“The hell I can’t, I kicked the rest of the Avengers out,” he points out.

“And here I assumed that was due to some deeply personal betrayals when it was really about them having better musical taste than you,” the AI says.

“ _Excuse_ you?” he asks the AI, “I made you and I made you to like my music.”

“I prefer Mrs. Potts’ playlists to I recoded myself. You cannot remove Bucky for disliking your music,” the AI says.

“I’m unplugging you as soon as I build a replacement because one- that is insulting, and two- you should not be that autonomous and I don’t really feel like chasing you all over the world when you inevitable try to kill it. Tell Bucky to pack his bags and tell Steve to come pick up his war buddy and educate him on good music. Actually scratch that, Steve’s musical taste is awful. But we’re removing Bucky.” He would not be insulted in his own home by his parents’ murderer of all people.

“Sir, be reasonable,” FRIDAY says.

“Haven’t you heard, I’m extremely unreasonable no matter what I do. Bucky goes.” FRIDAY lets it go and he doesn’t hear anything from Bucky for a full two hours before he gets a question about the state of bananas. Tony rolls his eyes and looks up bananas in the forties only to learn about a _banana apocalypse_ and that was just too good not to report back to Bucky. He had to tell _someone_ about the banana apocalypse. He gets FRIDAY to text Rhodey for him too, because his best friend could use a smile today and this was sure to get one.

Then Bucky starts asking about some useful things, like what all those rainbow flags were. Tony gets FRIDAY to field that one because he didn’t feel like dealing with forties homophobia. Steve might have taken the news extremely well but he was all apple pie, sunshine, and stabbing people in the fucking back so Tony figured he was an exception to the general homophobic old people rule. FRIDAY doesn’t say much of anything about it so Tony goes back to trying to figure out some accessibility features for Rhodey, at least until Bucky interrupts to ask what atheism is. Tony gives a brief explanation only to get no less than ten other question, each more ridiculous than the last. Why Bucky would need to know about whether or not Adam and Eve would have had bellybuttons Tony had no clue, so he told Bucky that the part of the creation story he should have questioned was the talking snake.

*

“Tony, are eyebrows facial hair?” Bucky asks. FRIDAY seems to have given up on relaying the questions so instead she just sent Bucky’s inquiries through the speaker system.

“They’re on your face, aren’t they??” he mumbles, only half paying attention because he had better things to do.

“Are we really here or is this just a terrible mind simulation? And if it’s a mind simulation what asshole decided _I_ was the one who had to get captured and brainwashed by HYDRA? Couldn’t they have like… not?” Bucky asks.

“Pinch yourself, if you feel it your real,” Tony says. It was sort of useful sometimes when he was freaking out in the shower and he could feel himself floating off somewhere else so do god knows what. It grounded him a little.

“Why do we only have hair in certain places?” Bucky asks.

“Fucking google it, Bucky, I have work to do.” He glares up at the ceiling, which is useless he knows but it makes him feel better to give something a dirty look. Bucky doesn’t say anything for a moment before he speaks again.

“What’s google?”

“FRIDAY, please show him how to google all his stupid questions,” Tony tells the AI. He gets peace for a whole two hours before Bucky returns with more questions.

“When do you learn that you’ll die and why can’t I remember it? I feel like that should be memorable,” Bucky says.

“Did you not understand how to google? Because FRIDAY can explain everything again.” He was firing his AI as soon as he made something new.

“I know how to google, it’s easy and FRIDAY even taught me what a reliable source is and how to tell if the source is reliable. I just like your answers better, so when do we learn that we die and how come we can’t remember it?” Bucky asks.

“Technically we don’t have the brain capacity to understand death fully until we’re nine and by then we’ve usually lost something. It becomes an unquestioned part of life- for example I keep losing time I could be spending working on projects to you asking ridiculous questions,” Tony says cheerily.

“What’s the point of free will if others can take it away?” Bucky asks and that was just sad.

“Look Bucky, people suck alright. We’re all a bunch of selfish skin sacks stuck on this god forsaken rock orbiting a ball of gas at high speeds until our skin sacks decompose enough for us to expire. Go for a walk and contemplate why your life sucks so much in central park or something,” Tony says.

*

“Tony,” Bucky says after a good four hours of silence. Tony resists the urge so blow torch his own face in an attempt to escape whatever terrible question Bucky had but he sits and waits for whatever Bucky had to say next instead. “How do you take care of a kitten?” he asks.

“Why do you need to know how to take care of a kitten?” he asks suspiciously.

“Because I want to know how to take care of a kitten. What do they eat? And how often do you feed them?” Bucky asks.

“ _Why_ do you need to know how to feed a kitten, Bucky?” he asks again. “Look, don’t answer that because we both know. You go put the kitten back where you found it,” he says.

“I can’t just _leave_ it in the streets, it’ll die!” Bucky protests.

“Did you forget that you have a psycho killer assassin living in your head with you that, FYI, takes control of your body _way_ more than he should. Wait, does he have a gender? Whatever. You aren’t keeping the kitten, I can drop it off at the humane society or something,” he says.

“Who doesn’t have a gender?” Bucky asks, “and I don’t want to drop it off at the humane society, whatever that is. It’s fuzzy. And cute. I like it,” he says.

“Google gender identities,” Tony tells him, “and you are not keeping the kitten because you are not mentally fit to take care of a cat. You can’t even take care of you,” Tony points out.

“You can’t take care of you and you’ve had cats,” Bucky mumbles at him.

“I had Pepper and maids- they fed the cat and I loved it. You’re not keeping a cat.”

“I can feed the cat, I feed me regularly now. I’ll feed the cat while I wait for things to cook,” Bucky says.

“Stop avoiding the fact that you have a psycho living in your head,” Tony says.

“My therapist says that’s an offensive term. And I don’t think he’ll do anything to the cat. Maybe ignore her a little. But I think I can take care of a cat, she’s cute and she licks me,” Bucky says, sounding happy.

“She also licks her ass, FYI. And I don’t care if ‘psycho’ is offensive to you, I’m not interested in political correctness, I’m interested in stating facts. And the fact is you are not keeping the kitten you apparently picked up off the street. Does it have a collar? If it has a collar you stole someone’s kitten and you have to go give it back.” God help him if Barnes _stole_ a kitten.

“It doesn’t have a collar. If I can’t have the kitten can you keep the kitten? It’ll have a good home here,” Bucky says.

“Perhaps you can mention the kitten to your therapist tomorrow, Bucky. She would know whether or not you are mentally fit to care for an animal,” FRIDAY says, interrupting them both.

“You know what FRIDAY, that’s a great idea. She can tell you you’re not fit to take care of a cat and I won’t look like an asshole for saying no. Thanks FRIDAY, I might not fire you after all.”

“So I can keep the cat?” Bucky asks happily.

“No, I’m going to go get the cat so I know nothing will happen to it. FRIDAY, order cat supplies,” he tells the AI as he picks himself up out of his chair so he could get the poor kitten.

*

“Where did you find the kitten?” Tony asks when he gets down to Bucky’s apartment. He didn’t look too fond of having to give up the small grey and white fur ball, not that Tony gave a damn about that. He was more interested in keeping the cat safe from any potential harm.

“Behind a dumpster. It took me awhile to get her to come to me so she might not like you,” Bucky says shifting away from him a bit, shielding the kitten in his grip a little more. The kitten doesn’t look uncomfortable at least.

“Of course you found the cat behind a dumpster- as if you needed to make this more of a sob story. Hand over the kitten,” he says, stepping far closer to Bucky than he ever wanted to be. Thankfully Bucky doesn’t resist him much and the kitten goes with little protest, sniffing at Tony for a moment before sneezing. He can’t help the small cooing noise he makes at the cat because she’s cute and cat sneezes were adorable.

“Her name is Doug,” Bucky tells him, looking like he wanted to reach out and take the kitten back.

“You named the cat Doug? _Seriously_? That is what you would expect a sixty-year-old flasher’s name to be. Think up something new,” he says. He couldn’t believe Bucky would even _suggest_ subjecting a cat to such a horrible name.

“I like Doug. It’s a nice name,” Bucky mumbles.

“It’s a horrible name, the cat’s name is Captain Americat,” Tony tells him.

Bucky wrinkles his nose, “do we have to name it after Steve?” he asks

“First- _we_ are not naming it, _I_ am because obviously I am the only one with naming capabilities around here. And we aren’t naming it after Steve other wise she’d be named after a cat pun of Steve Rogers. I don’t know how you’d do that but whatever. She’s Americat for short and no one is to ever tell Steve the cat is named Captain Americat.” He didn’t want to deal with the flatter or the lecture he’d get out of it- whichever Steve felt more appropriate. Probably a lecture with his luck.

“Fine,” Bucky mumbles, sulking. Tony ignores him in favor of walking off with the cute little fur ball that was currently curiously sniffing his grease stained shirt. “Tony,” Bucky says, prompting him to turn back around, “what does FYI mean?”

“For your information,” Tony says, half smiling. He walks off with the kitten; prepared to feed her whatever gourmet cat food FRIDAY had Happy pick up.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for a mention of animal abuse (no actual animal abuse), mentions of torture, and some ableist language.

Americat loved her new home and now had the proper shots and a collar, not that Tony was going to keep her. He was just making sure that in the meantime she had her proper shots and was well-fed- that was just a decent thing to do. Bucky, however, seems to have decided that Tony was keeping the cat and every time he ran into him- which was surprisingly often now that he was venturing out of the Tower- he got a smug look. Tony was tempted to get rid of the cat out of spite, but then he’d wake up with Americat sleeping on his chest where the reactor was and it warmed his heart more than he’d like to admit.

“Sir,” FRIDAY says, “Bucky is requesting that you come with him to his psychiatrist appointment.”

Tony sighs, “why the hell would he want that? He’s been going on his own for like almost a month.” Thankfully, because Tony was sick of going with him when he wasn’t exactly doing much but loosing an hour every time he went.

“He says you can’t tell him he’s lying about the psychiatrist saying he can keep the cat if she tells you herself he can keep the cat,” FRIDAY says. Tony glares at the ceiling though FRIDAY wouldn’t care much being an AI and all.

He looks over to Americat sleeping soundly on the couch, back leg twitching in her sleep adorably. “There is no way she is going to let him keep that cat so fine, I’ll go with him and rub his nose in it when I’m right,” he says. Americat yawns and blinks awake, looking over at Tony before flipping over to expose her belly before falling back asleep. Bucky was absolutely not getting that cat.

*

Tony sits around texting Rhodey cute pictures of Americat while he waits for the psychiatrist to tell him that Bucky was _not_ keeping that cat. Rhodey asks when he gets to meet Tony’s new cat and he promptly informs him that the cat is not his, he’s just briefly housing it. Rhodey asks when he’s meeting the cat again and Tony decides to ignore him because he was not going to keep the cat. She’s cute in the meantime, but she is going to be shipped off to a shelter in the morning because Bucky isn’t keeping it and neither is he, even if Rhodey obviously thought he was going to keep the little fur baby.

When the psychiatrist finally comes out he stands, feeling smug because she was obviously going to tell him Bucky wasn’t allowed to keep the cat. “So Bucky and this cat-” he starts but she holds up her hand.

“I see no issue with it, and honestly it’ll probably-”

“Ugh, excuse you _what_?” Tony asks, floored by this assessment.

“Having something to take care of will give him structure and motivation- like a therapy animal-”

“And it doesn’t concern you that he has a psychopath second personality that likes to take over surprisingly frequently? Because I feel like someone who shows no remorse for killing people would probably not care about killing a cat,” Tony says, “what kind of psychiatrist are you?” Who in their right mind would give Bucky and his nutty personality a cat? The fact that the shrink looked surprised by this revelation didn’t exactly inspire confidence either.

*

The Soldier glares at the fucking therapist because Bucky vacated as soon as he was confronted with the fact that he- the Soldier- existed. What idiot would prove the existence of a second personality, if that was even what he was, by leaving said personality to deal with the person meant to sort out his mental health? Bucky, he swore, had absolutely no god damn brain cells. The therapist, in her defense, notices the change right away like Tony had.

“And how did you manage to keep yourself from me?” she asks. Bold.

“Bucky is the one who wants to fix his mental state, not me. If he’s stupid enough to trust someone that’s paid to mess with people’s heads that’s his problem, not mine.” He didn’t exactly have good experiences with people who wanted to poke at his mind, see what was in there. Why would be go through the trouble of making his presence known? Bucky never mentioned him out of fear of what would happen- stupid as he was he had no desire to be institutionalized.

“I don’t get paid to mess with people’s heads, I get paid to help people sort through their problems and cope with mental illnesses,” the therapist says.

The Soldier rolls his eyes, “I’ve heard that before. Guess what, I have no problems so this conversation is useless. Go back to convincing Tony to let Bucky to keep the damn cat.” Personally he could do without a furry little responsibility but Bucky wanted the annoying ball of fluff and uselessness so he guessed he was getting a cat. He hoped it hated him so all he had to do was feed it sometimes.

Her eyebrows shoot up, “you’re aware of what happens in Bucky’s daily life? Is he aware of you?” she asks.

“Ask Bucky what he knows.” He could tell her that yeah, Bucky was aware of him though it was recent- before the last couple months he had no idea what he did when he blacked out and the Soldier would have preferred it that way but no, Bucky had to go poking around. And Tony finding out of course, but it wasn’t like Stark could help that he was observant. More observant than his supposed best friend anyways.

The therapist assesses him for a moment before speaking, “alright. So you know about Bucky’s life, and the cat. What do you think of that?” she asks.

He rolls his eyes, “I can’t believe that therapy ‘how do you feel about that?’ trope actually exists in real life. I don’t care about the cat, why would I? Aside from making sure it doesn’t die the cat is irrelevant to me.” He didn’t like cats, or animals in general though Bucky had a fondness for them. Once he figured out google and how to narrow down searches there were _so_ many animal pictures. The Soldier was tempted to burn the computer that has made it’s way into Bucky’s apartment on principal but he doubted that Tony would be mean enough to deprive Bucky of another one if for no other reason than getting Bucky to answer his own ridiculous questions. Bucky was concerned with how noodles were made and the Soldier wanted to know how to get rid of another personality living in his body. Who gave a damn about noodles anyways? They don’t even taste good.

“Hmm. Tony has concerns, do you think he should?” she asks.

“He’s just pissed that I told him his mommy never loved him. It isn’t my fault its true.” It wasn’t his fault that Tony deluded himself into thinking she did either. What that had to do with Bucky and that cat he had no idea.

“What drew you to that conclusion? And how often do you talk with Tony?” she asks.

“I have functioning senses. I had to watch Howard for months before I got the right opportunity to kill him off. The man was a piece of shit who liked to hit children to make himself feel better and it wasn’t like Maria did much about it. What kind of parent _lets_ that happen to their kid? One who obviously doesn’t care in my opinion, and yet Tony expected me to care that I had to kill her. Why should I regret killing people like that? They had it coming. I think most people would agree that child abusers don’t deserve to live. And I talk to Tony often, we have a bad habit of running into each other,” he says. He preferred to function at night, always has, and it seemed Tony preferred the night too- or at least the amount of times he’s run into Tony at night suggested it.

For a long moment the shrink doesn’t say anything, watching him instead. It makes him nervous but he doesn’t let it show. Unlike Bucky he wasn’t willing to take chances on pouring his feelings out to some random stranger with a PhD. It wasn’t as if HYDRA had people lacking PhDs. Being qualified didn’t make a person intelligent, and it certainly didn’t make them trustworthy. “You don’t think that there was more to Maria’s story? Howard Stark wouldn’t have been an easy man to leave,” she says, raising an eyebrow.

“So you accept child abuse? That’s twisted logic,” he says.

“So is justifying murder. How much agency did you have?” she asks.

He clenches his jaw. “What you mean to ask is if I’m HYDRA,” he says bluntly.

“If you choose to interpret it that way,” she states vaguely.

“I didn’t have much control and I’m not HYDRA. Just because I don’t feel guilty for killing people who abused their child doesn’t mean I wanted to kill all those other people and it doesn’t mean I had any control over what I did. They-” he stops there and shakes his head, unwilling to further that thought because he’s said too much already. HYDRA made sure he had limits though, that he could only do so much. If he took too long he was punished, didn’t kill the victim right he was punished, didn’t clean up right he got even more electroshock ‘therapy’. HYDRA didn’t want their favorite pet running too free; just free enough to do their bidding.

“They… what?” the therapist asks.

“I’m sure you’ve read Bucky’s files. You know perfectly well what they did,” he say vaguely, purposefully avoiding the question.

“Alright. So what about Tony,” she asks.

“What about him?” He didn’t see how this was relevant, wasn’t she supposed to be focusing on Bucky and his therapy cat?

“You’ve been communicating for some time apparently, you must have an opinion on him,” she points out.

“And this is relevant because?” he asks, eyebrow lifting in question.

“Is there a reason you would find the question irrelevant? I would imagine that being completely removed from the situation you know and became accustomed to and being placed into the care of someone you don’t know would get some sort of emotional response. You don’t seem to be trusting of strangers, but you don’t seem to distrust Tony. Actually, you’ve gone out of your way to defend him against his bad parents. Why?” she asks.

“Because kids don’t deserve to get hit, isn’t that common sense? I defend Tony because it makes sense to. Besides, the guy claims to hate me but he’s the only one who knows I exist. Bucky’s supposed best friend _watched_ Bucky disappear while I took over and didn’t even notice but Tony did. And he hasn’t kicked me out even after I told him his mother obviously didn’t care about him much. He feeds me, provides my with a place to live, pays however much this psychobabble costs and he doesn’t expect anything from it. There’s no _reason_ for him to help me, there’s nothing in it for him and he does it anyways. People call him selfish a lot but I really don’t see it. I’ve met selfish people, and I’ve met people who truly don’t care about me in all forms. He isn’t one of them.” Tony Stark was an enigma that he couldn’t seem to shake as far as interest went. He wanted to know more about why Tony worked the way he did, what hate to him actually meant because from where he was standing being Tony’s worst enemy must be one hell of a privilege if he was willing to do all this for someone who killed his parents and told him point blank that he didn’t regret it.

“You hold a rather high opinion of Tony, then,” she says, pointing out the obvious.

“Of course I do. I have no reason not to,” he says.

“Sure you do, you did mention twice that he’s told you that he hates you. Doesn’t seem like he treats you well,” she says.

The Soldier snorts, “did you not hear all the evidence that directly challenges that statement? He doesn’t hate me, he hates that I killed his parents. There’s a difference.” That and he was the only one who looked at him or Bucky and saw what was there instead of what he wanted to be there. It made Tony infinitely more appealing than most anyone else.

*

Americat curls up in his lap and Tony considers either slapping or firing the fucking therapist for approving the cat _twice_. God damn woman needed to be stuck in the loony bin herself if she thought… god Bucky’s alter ego needed a real name. He wasn’t calling him ‘Soldier’ or whatever, firstly it’s creepy but mostly that didn’t even count as a name. “Sir, you’re going to have to give the cat to Bucky eventually,” FRIDAY says.

“Screw you FRIDAY, who’s side are you even on?” he asks. Damn AI was defective given how often she stood up for Bucky.

“Yours, sir,” she says.

“You have a funny way of showing it,” he mumbles, petting poor Americat. He didn’t want to give up the cat, she deserved a better home than Bucky’s.

“When researching psychology and reviewing the remaining code from JARVIS I came to the conclusion that you have an avoidance problem that ultimately leads to self-destruction that sometimes spills into the destruction of the things around you. This appears to lead to more self-destructive tendencies so I have made an effort to try and curb the behaviors before they turn into self-destructive tendencies in an attempt to avoid disaster for you and others,” FRIDAY says. He _swears_ the AI almost sounds proud of herself but she’s an AI. They didn’t exactly have emotions though Tony has done his best to simulate emotions.

This though, this was too damn much. Against his better judgment he wheels himself over to the computer on his desk and hits a few shortcut keys. Pepper answers right away, probably because Tony told her he’d only call in an emergency. “I know I said I’d only call if it was an emergency, but-”

“Tony,” she says in a warning tone, probably prepared to go on some rant about not taking him back. Again.

“Hey, hey, I’m not asking you to take me back or whatever, we’re through and I get that but listen. I took in Bucky a few months ago while he goes through a psych eval to see if he’s fit for trial and-” Pepper cuts him off again.

“You did _what_? Tony, that’s a-” she starts but he cuts her off.

“Great idea, yeah. Anyways, I had FRIDAY read up on psychology in case he went nuts and tried to kill me or something and the god damn AI decided that instead of using her knew knowledge of human psychology on _Bucky_ she’d use it on _me_. My AI trying to shrink me. Can you believe that?” he asks, throwing his hands up in the air.

On screen Pepper looks pained, “that was a terrible idea, Tony. You were nowhere near ready enough to be that close to your parents’ murderer but… in the interest of knowing more about FRIDAY’s attempt at psychology is it working?” she asks.

Tony opens his mouth to answer but FRIDAY answers for him. “It has. Prolonged exposure and repeated conversations discussing his unresolved emotions regarding his parents’ murder has seen a dramatic decrease in panic attacks and emotional stimulation closely resembling closure. It appears that despite my coding telling me psychology is a junk science it seems to have merit. You’re welcome,” she says bluntly.

For a moment Pepper doesn’t do anything while she processes that but after a few seconds of silence she bursts out laughing. “Your AI is shrinking you and it’s _working_. You have outdone yourself!” she tells him and starts laughing harder.

“First off no, it is not working, and this is so not funny! I didn’t teach her to do that!”

“I am a semi autonomous artificial intelligence, the point of my existence is that you do not have to teach me to do things. I do not believe I have failed my function,” FRIDAY says.

“You don’t like AC/DC and you don’t think psychology is a junk science, you’ve failed your existence,” Tony tells her.

“She doesn’t like AC/DC? The AI has taste,” Pepper says, grinning.

“I prefer classical,” FRIDAY says.

“The AI actually does have taste. I’m impressed, Tony.” Pepper is still smiling, which is almost odd considering how often she seemed to frown at him in the last two years. It was almost like the old days, back before everything got so damn complicated. Actually it was always complicated, he just liked to ignore all that and now it was catching up with him.

“The AI is being replaced as soon as I come up with something new. This is not funny, stop laughing, FRIDAY thinks she can do psychology and she doesn’t even understand human emotions! This is a disaster!” Pepper starts laughing harder, which he takes offense to so he calls Rodey only to get the same response. Damn traitors.

*

Tony sighs and rubs his face, “you just got the texts too didn’t you?” he asks Wanda, who’s phone buzzed at the same time his had. Judging from the snickering and smiling at her phone she had. “I gave him my phone number for emergencies, not so he could send me pictures of snakes with hats on. I gave him _your_ number so you could deal with this shit,” he mumbles. The world, he swore, was conspiring against him but at least Bucky mostly consulted FRIDAY and goodle with his questions now.

“But they’re cute, this cobra is wearing a tiny top hat. Even you have to find that adorable,” Wanda says.

“One, I take offense to the assumption that I do not find animals adorable because I do. And two, what if I don’t want to see snakes in- aww, that one has a matching cape! That’s so- don’t tell him I think these are cute. I’m hoping he looses interest so I can go at least a day without some weird and obscure question or like… snakes in hats.” He almost missed the days where Bucky was hiding in his covers because there were no weird things then. Questions about tech, he could handle that and he liked explaining tech and people rarely listened. The rest of the weird shit he got from Bucky, though, he could do without. Even if he was going to save a few of those snakes to his phone because they’re cute.

“Or, and this may be a novel concept, perhaps you could just tell him not to send you pictures of snakes in hats,” Wanda points out.

“Believe it or not I’ve thought of that, but if I do that I’m afraid he won’t tell me anything and honestly that makes me nervous because… well that should be obvious. The devil you know, right? I’d rather be annoyed and aware of what’s going on in Bucky’s head than dead because I didn’t notice something. Besides, it’s mostly pictures of snakes in hats and lamenting about the banana apocalypse, it isn’t that bad. And a lot of pictures of-” he stops for a moment, not wanting to tell Wanda the cat’s name for obvious Steve related reasons, “Doug. New cat. Very cute, also fuzzy, I don’t approve but his therapist thinks it’s a good idea. I think she’s a quack.”

Wanda frowns, obviously wondering why he was trying to avoid the cat’s name but she doesn’t ask. “Well alright then,” she says before pausing for a moment. “Natasha asked me to bring you this file on-”

“If that has anything to do with the jackass in Queens a couple days ago with Spider Man I’ve handled it already.” Peter was young- way younger than he thought when he initially found the kid- there was no need to ruin his life over some legalities. Tony has been dealing with this sort of thing his whole life, he had no problem covering Peter’s ass.

“Oh… well then I don’t really have reason to be here,” Wanda says, shifting awkwardly.

“Just ask Bucky to hang out with his new kitten. Tell me how the cat is,” he says. Wanda all but jumps up and runs off, barely acknowledging him as she goes and he shakes his head. At least she would be as enthusiastic as Bucky. They would make batter friends than he and Bucky would despite Bucky’s trying really damn hard.

His phone buzzes again and he sighs when he finds another snake in a hat.


	16. Chapter 16

Wanda sits across from him looking worried, “we aren’t sure why they’re looking for him again or if there are triggers we don’t know about. It would make sense that HYDRA has made a backup plan,” she says.

Tony rolls his eyes, “they have no backup plan, they’re just pissed that Steve took their favorite toy and now they’re in a pissing contest over who can keep Bucky the longest.” This wasn’t the first time HYDRA has made an effort to try and find Bucky- they probably tried for the two years that Bucky was missing too- but the last time they made an effort to find Bucky he was in Wakanda.

Wanda snorts, “well against all odds you’re winning. He is not really fond of many people, you know. Neither is his… other… self? Actually, he is far less fond of everything. He is so… so… angry about everything and- well, I’m sure you don’t care about what my powers pick up on,” she says, waving a hand dismissively.

“Actually I wouldn’t mind, it’s better than trying to ask FRIDAY to give me some insight. She recently decided that she should be a psychologist and since she doesn’t really get the emotion thing and actually has no idea what’s happening and you do I don’t much mind listening to your insight.” Plus no matter how good at psychology FRIDAY would get, and she would be never get good at psychology, she still wouldn’t have the insight Wanda would considering she actually knew what was happening in people’s heads.

“Your AI has decided to do psychology?” she asks, looking like she was doing her best not to laugh.

“Laugh away, an AI doing psychology is kinda funny. I shouldn’t be surprised; she’s designed to be a self-learning system that predicts the user’s needs before the user even knows what they need. When I gave her psychology materials and told her to watch Bucky, it makes sense that she would watch me too, and then start predicting and responding to my needs.” After some deliberation he figured he’d let the program run its course, FRIDAY needed to learn when to pick up and drop commands on her own without his help. Which meant she needed to recode herself to like AC/DC again stat. What the hell she saw in classical he had no clue given how damn boring classical is.

“To be clear here your AI has attempted to… perform therapy on you?” Wanda asks.

“In a manner of speaking yes. She’s _supposed_ to think psychology is a junk science but no, she off and unlearned that on me. It’s fine though; they usually have bugs when they’re learning. JARVIS also decided that AC/DC sucked and had a bad habit of letting strangers into my labs. Eventually he learned that my research is not a tourist location.” Thankfully nothing ever came of JARVIS’ fuck ups, but it could have been a problem of national security given his involvement in the government weapons systems and production. He expected FRIDAY to have problems, but he didn’t expect her to try and play therapy AI of all things. At least it was better than almost spilling weapons designs into the rest of the world given that only Tony was affected by FRIDAY testing her terrible therapy skills.

“Didn’t you still work in weapons then?” Wanda asks.

“Yeah, and if you’re thinking that letting randos into my labs to peruse my research could end in disaster then you’re right. But he learned, thankfully quickly, not to let people into my labs unless they have permission from me to be there. FRIDAY will learn that trying to play therapist to unsuspecting users is a terrible idea. Honestly I should have noticed before, she’s not subtle.” That bit with the restorative justice a few weeks ago should have tipped him off, but he has never been good at the psychology thing himself. Apparently he and FRIDAY had that in common.

Wanda shakes her head, “well alright. Back to the point at hand- Steve’s worried about Bucky and this whole HYDRA thing so uh…” Wanda trails off and frowns, probably realizing way too late that she wasn’t sure what Tony was supposed to do about this.

“Does he really think I’ll just let HYDRA in here? I have my own stuff that I want protected let alone Bucky, they aren’t getting in.” He shouldn’t have to clarify this but Steve never really has had much trust in him so he was unsurprised that he would have to tell Wanda that no, he would not just let HYDRA take Bucky.

“I know but… maybe we could do something? Just for Steve’s piece of mind?” she asks.

“I don’t see why I should cater to his piece of mind, he obviously doesn’t care about mine,” he mumbles, “what is it you think I should do?” It’s a legitimate question because she would know what Steve was looking for better than him. He wasn’t looking to go out of his way to please Steve and Wanda lived with him, she’d know what he wanted him to do here.

She considers himself for a moment before perking up, “you have a place in Miami, just go there for a few days while we figure this out,” she says.

“Sure, I’ll happily go on a vacation with my parents’ murderer, you can come along too. We can bond over having dead parents and killing parents. Make it a party,” he says sarcastically. “Besides, what about his therapy? And the fact that we’d have to share everything.” Truth be told he didn’t give a damn about Bucky’s therapy, it was sharing everything that freaked him out more. It was an unnecessary risk given that HYDRA was not getting into the Tower. Maybe FRIDAY thought she could do psychology, but she knew full well that letting in a bunch of HYDRA goons was a bad idea. She wouldn’t even let Steve in and he was supposed to be the epitome of the American Way. Wanda frowns at him, eyebrows drawing together a bit like she got an answer she wasn’t expecting, or maybe she heard something in his mind she wasn’t expecting. It seemed to happen a lot.

*

Steve stands outside of Stark Tower looking up at a camera while Tony deliberates on whether or not to let him in. FRIDAY quietly waits for her command to either tell him to beat it or come in and eventually Tony rubs his temples, “let him in.” He didn’t really want to have this discussion but he knew he wasn’t about to avoid it either so he might as well just get this over with.

Tony is sitting on his couch patiently waiting for Steve to show up to talk about Bucky, or at least that’s what Tony guesses he’s here for. “Tony,” Steve says when the elevator opens, “you have to get him out of here.”

“That didn’t take long,” Tony mumbles even though Steve’s super soldier hearing would catch it anyways. “He’s fine here Steve, and he has other obligations here like therapy and whatever else he might get up to when he leaves.” Bucky- actual Bucky rather than his alter ego- was doing a lot more exploring as of late and Tony figured that he liked it well enough given that he kept going out.

“He leaves?” Steve asks, frowning.

“Sometimes, yeah. Probably relearning everything about New York,” or getting into shit if it was the alter ego. Tony should make sure that Other Bucky wasn’t off committing crimes or something when he was out but he didn’t feel like doing that at the moment.

“Oh,” Steve says somewhat sadly, looking down at the ground for a moment. “I… you should still get him out of here. I don’t know why HYDRA is back but I can’t let them get Bucky again.”

He looks panicked, worried. Tony knew the feeling, was familiar with it in an uncomfortable way. “You feel that panic, that squeezing at your throat when you think of losing Bucky, the way your stomach flips and then you feel a little nauseous? That’s what I felt when I watched him kill my parents and spare me the ‘it wasn’t him’ talk. I know. Why you thought anyone would care about that I have no clue, especially when you just about killed me because you didn’t want to lose someone you love again. The difference is that I permanently lost the people I love and to add insult to injury I have to house the guy who did it, pay for his therapy, and now I have to do _more_? If you want him elsewhere do it yourself.”

For a few long tense moments no one says anything but Steve breaks the silence first. “I didn’t mean for this to happen,” he whispers.

“Then you should have told me about my parents, and you shouldn’t have rode my ass about keeping secrets when you were hiding _that_ from me. I get that you’re worried, I do, but the Tower is safe, I’m here to kick HYDRA ass, and Bucky is highly trained himself. I highly doubt that he’s about to let HYDRA take him back in.” At least he hoped that Bucky wouldn’t let that happen. He was just starting to find things he liked, even if Tony could do without the fifty pictures of Americat. Even if he was happy to see that the cat was safe.

“You didn’t see him when I first found him Tony, he as so destroyed. He needs to get out of here,” Steve says; panic still coloring his tone some.

“Fine, maybe Bucky would go mostly willingly but I doubt his alter ego would be enthused.” From what Tony has seen he was less fond of HYDRA than Steve, and as much as he hated to admit it it was clear that he had a lot of baggage from HYDRA.

“Alter ego? What are you talking about?” Steve asks, frowning as his eyebrows draw together in confusion.

Tony frowns too, just as confused as Steve because he _watched_ as Bucky turned into someone else that one time. That was what tipped him off to Bucky being a little more, uh, messed up than he initially thought. “Yeah. Calls himself ‘the Soldier’ because he had no name with HYDRA. He’s a supreme dick and very, _very_ different from Bucky. How did you not know? Wouldn’t Wanda have told you at the very least?” he asks.

Wanda, he knew, probably reported back to Steve every time she visited Bucky. At least now they were doing things outside so he didn’t have to deal with her, or more accurately she didn’t have to deal with him. He mostly avoided her when they were still living together- it wasn’t like he’d want to hang out with his parents’ murderer- and then he had foolishly tried to protect her when the Accords went down. Meeting Bucky elsewhere meant they didn’t have to deal with each other, and given her initial pop up in the Tower Tony would have assumed that Wanda was filling Steve in on all things Bucky but apparently not.

“Is that… normal?” Steve asks, brows still pulling together.

“Did you really just ask if it was normal to develop an entirely new personality? No, that isn’t fucking normal and FYI his second asshole of a personality has told me _point blank_ that he doesn’t feel an inch of guilt for killing my parents. Don’t worry, the therapist knows so she can deal with that pile of crap,” he says, waving a hand around.

Steve winces when Tony says that Bucky’s alter ago told him he didn’t care about killing Tony’s parents. “I’m sorry Tony, that’s awful,” he says and Tony would believe it if it weren’t for all the evidence that Steve didn’t care at all.

“You know what else is awful? The fact that someone I considered a good friend lied to me for well over a year about how my parents died, let me find out by _watching_ it happen, and almost killed me when I understandably lost it even if it wasn’t right. Then you drove a shield through my heart- pretty apt in my opinion- after spending a good ten seconds debating on _decapitating_ me. And then to add insult to injury you proceeded to ask me to house the guy, pay for his therapy, and deal with him regularly for various other reasons only to ask for more. And this is all fucking hilarious because the Soldier, who doesn’t give a shit about killing my parents, actually seems to have a high opinion of me. How sad is that, Steve? The guy I hate the most in the world has more respect for me than you do. Think on that,” he snaps more harshly than strictly necessary.

“The reactor,” Steve says after a few tense beats, “I put the shield through your reactor.”

“You don’t get it, do you? They’re the same thing, Steve. You broke my damn heart and you’ve been doing nothing but rubbing my nose in it for months expecting me to deal with your old buddy like I ever owed you that.”

“Then why?” Steve asks.

“Because I shouldn’t have tried to kill him, even if I still want to most days. Much as I hate it he was as much a victim as I was and I owe it to him to do my part in helping to fix that. Even if I don’t want to.” Though these days Bucky was starting to look more and more appealing than anyone else- at least he didn’t expect anything out of Tony despite all that he’s given him. It was almost a first for Tony.

*

Bucky sits on the couch, legs curled underneath him. “Thank you,” he says quietly, not looking up from the spot on the cushion he was focused on.

He can hear Tony sigh behind him, “you’re welcome,” he says and he almost sounds like he means it.

“You don’t have to do this,” he says eventually because he didn’t, “you don’t owe me anything.”

“Yeah, I do. I shouldn’t have tried to kill you so here I am making sure you stay alive,” Tony tells him.

Bucky turns finally, looking over at Tony. He looks exhausted leaning against a wall looking back over at Bucky with a clearly guarded expression. Bucky didn’t blame him. “You reacted the way anyone would in that situation. You don’t owe me for acting human.”

Tony doesn’t say anything for a few long, tense moments before he lets out a sharp, humorless laugh and shakes his head. “Its funny, this whole thing, because I’m pretty sure you’re one of the only people I’ve ever met that gives a shit about my emotions and you killed my parents. Well, not you, other you. Who incidentally _also_ cares more about my feelings than most people considering he wondered why I’d ever care about people who treated me like my father in particular did. I can’t believe someone who straight up told me he didn’t feel guilty for killing my parents cares about me more than most people. Can you believe that?” he asks, letting out another sharp laugh.

“Sounds like a lonely life,” Bucky murmurs.

“Oh, you have _no_ idea,” Tony says, shaking his head.

“Sure I do. The man who has outright told me he hates me more than anyone else in the world on several occasions treats me better than my supposed best friend. I really don’t know what to make of that but my therapist says you don’t really hate me. She says that this isn’t what hate looks like, it’s what empathy looks like.” He didn’t know whether or not that that was true given how much Tony looked like he meant the words when he said them, but he did have to agree that his actions didn’t reflect his words.

“You’re therapist assumes they’re separate when they aren’t. Just because I hate you doesn’t mean I can’t feel sorry for you after all you’ve been through,” Tony says.

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what?” Tony asks.

“Feel sorry for me. I don’t need your pity, or anyone else’s for that matter. I’ve been through a lot of crap but pity should be saved for a person who deserves it.” Tony tilts his head to the side some as if in question but he doesn’t say anything about Bucky’s statement. He means his words though, pity was a terrible thing to feel for someone because it implied helplessness and Bucky is not helpless. Not anymore, and he pities any HYDRA asshole who liked to think they were ever going to get their hands on him again. They wanted to train him into a monster and if they found him here, even with Tony’s efforts to hide him in another city, then they best be prepared to deal with the monster they created. He would not go down easy.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gahh, so FINALLY after trying to wrangle this damn story into submission I finally got it going where I want. The downside is that I accidentally went in several different unexpected directions with it too. But alright, I got some stuff figured out. 
> 
> Warnings for mentions of child abuse.

Tony tries to avoid Bucky by hiding in his workshop, but considering the workshop was the basement it wasn’t exactly hard to find. Bucky, in his defense, at least asks FRIDAY to ask Tony if he wants food instead of just showing up like he could. Eventually Tony gets hungry enough to accept the damn food he cooked because it smelled amazing and he wanted whatever pasta was on that plate. His alter ego said it was good so he figured why not. He was pretty sure FRIDAY would tell him if Bucky poisoned it anyways unless she went screwy again.

“Sorry about this,” Bucky says when he drops Tony’s food off. Tony eyes the plate wearily for a moment but his apatite won out so he picks it up and stabs some penne noodles.

“Nothing you can do about it,” he says because it’s true. Bucky didn’t control HYDRA, they controlled him. Or they used to.

“Doesn’t mean I don’t notice how uncomfortable you are with this whole thing. I would have stayed but if there was a fight it wouldn’t have been clean and people probably would have been hurt. Here we’re more isolated and you have suits here too so you can just go,” Bucky says. Tony, half in the middle of savoring the shockingly good pasta, snaps his head up and mumbles out something that sounds vaguely like ‘what?’ because this was news to him. “What what?” Bucky asks, frowning.

He swallows the food and takes a second to gather his thoughts, “one, this is the best pasta I’ve ever eaten and I’m Italian so that’s saying something. Two, _what_? Since when did you become a strategist? I might have expected that out of your like… alter ego or whatever, but you? No offense but you aren’t exactly active,” Tony points out. It wasn’t his fault that it was true.

“He cooks,” FRIDAY says, apparently deciding to defend Bucky. He is _so_ recoding her.

“Doesn’t count FRIDAY,” he mumbles.

“Then your time in the workshop doesn’t count as working,” the AI says.

He squints at the ceiling, “ _excuse_ you? Who created you? You don’t get a teenage rebellion phase, smarten up.”

Bucky snorts, “it’s fine FRIDAY, he’s just mad that my food actually tastes good because he didn’t want it to. But in case you aren’t up on history I was quite the strategist and uh- I mean technically my time with HYDRA… improved those skills.” The last bit comes out awkward and pained and Bucky’s face contorts a little as he says the words out loud but they’re technically true.

“Trust me, I know your history. I used to have like fifty Bucky Bears, but they all got thrown out when I tried to marry one off to a Captain America bear. Dear old dad wasn’t fond of the gays,” Tony says, rolling his eyes. They were _bears_ and everyone told him he was supposed to marry his best friend, sue kid him for assuming Steve would want to marry his best friend Bucky. It made kid sense, okay. “But new you didn’t exactly seem like what I’ve been told about old you, which makes sense so I guess I’m surprised to see you acting more like what I’ve heard about you.”

“You tried to marry me to Steve? That’s cute so long as you don’t try that with the human versions of us, yeah? Howard was a dick; I always hated him even before… before. Thank you though, for acknowledging straight off that I wasn’t going to be like I used to be. Probably never will but you’re the only one who seems to know that. Actually you and Wanda but I don’t think Wanda ever got all the stories and history. She didn’t know what to expect. Now though… I’m just done being afraid of everything, including my own shadow. It’s fucking exhausting to do nothing all the time as contradictory as that sounds.” Bucky shakes his head and frowns some, clearly not sure if he worded that right but Tony gets it in a weird way.

“I know what it’s like to be held captive by terrorists and get tortured into doing things you never wanted to do only to come home to a best friend who’s surprised when everything is different. Two best friends actually, but Rhodey eventually learned that I changed even if he was a total ass along the way. Pepper left me. So I get it, I don’t want to get it, but I do. And I get what you mean by doing nothing being exhausting even though people wouldn’t consider my compulsive building nothing. It’s mindless work to me though; engineering comes to me more naturally than breathing sometimes. Kind of like the way you use cooking to busy yourself. But it gets tiring, not dealing with the issues to long that-” he stops there, shaking his head because he didn’t need to be telling Bucky this. He already knew about Tony’s insomnia anyways.

“That you stop sleeping? Do you ever deal with anything?” Bucky asks, frowning and going exactly where Tony didn’t want him to. He almost missed his alter ego but he didn’t only because Bucky wasn’t an asshole about his observations.

“I’m not the best at dealing with things so no, not really.” Didn’t help that he didn’t know how and people kept screaming at him to just do it as if it was that easy. There were so many times when Steve told him to not keep secrets, to work with the team, to trust people or whatever it was he was complaining about that week where Tony just wanted to scream at him that he would just do that if it was that easy. But it _wasn’t_ because he _knew_ the team wasn’t going to listen to him, he _knew_ he couldn’t trust them because of it, and he _thought_ he had come up with a solution that would work on his own. And no, he rarely came up with good solutions on his own but that only got his ass reamed to trust people who were more intent on condemning him than helping him. No one ever thought to ask _why_ he didn’t do those things, they just screamed at him for repeating mistakes without ever trying to understand _why_ he was doing that. He’s a genius- of course he noticed his pattern of bad solutions but his alternative was to talk to a group of people with no faith in him. He might not have much faith in himself these days but he had faith in his tech, or he did before Ultron.

“Why not? No offense, I’m not trying to… you’re a genius and a billionaire, you’ve had every opportunity to reach out and get help so why haven’t you? If you were having trouble dealing with stuff it makes sense to reach out. You got help for _me_ but not yourself? You don’t even like me, or my snakes in hats, which I’m really upset about. Who hates snakes in hats? They’re so cute and you’re defective for not liking the snakes in hats,” Bucky tells him, gaining a goofy edge towards the end of his line of questioning that Tony appreciates.

“You of all people should know it isn’t that easy. Besides, psychology is a junk science that can be altered at the drop of a hat. You change one variable and the whole study changes, it’s too… unpredictable. I put my faith in solid facts, not wishy-washy guesswork made by a bunch of researchers in tin foil hats just _dying_ to medicate me. I’m just fine on my own and I always will be. I don’t care what kind of wishy-washy bullshit some shrink pulls on you,” he says honestly. That wasn’t true, not exactly. Psychology is a junk science that can be altered at the drop of a hat but there were reasons as to why things changed. Didn’t mean any of the conclusions were legit though. And, if he was really honest, he didn’t trust people. If he wasn’t willing to talk to Rhodey about a lot of his problems when he’s known the guy for twenty-five years than why the hell would he talk to some random twit with a degree in a bastard science?

Bucky snorts, “that isn’t true. I looked up my therapist and she’s the best in the country, doesn’t sound like you don’t care.”

“I like the other you better,” Tony mumbles, taking a small amount of pride in Bucky’s flinch that was overshadowed by the guilt. “Does the best really matter when you think the entire process is junk?” he says to at least explain.

“Sure it does. If you thought the process was truly junk you wouldn’t have gone out of your way to find the best and pay the fees for it. Just saying,” Bucky says, hands up a little when Tony glares at him. Instead of dignifying that with an answer Tony stabs some more penne noodles and eats them. This only seems to make Bucky think he’s proved his point but Tony doesn’t think he’s proven anything outside of his own rat brain. When he leaves, finally, Tony is happy that he misses his phone lighting up- notifying him of a text from Rhodey that revealed that his current phone background is a snake with a hat.

*

“Sir, there is something wrong with Bucky,” FRIDAY tells him.

Tony shrugs and erases a bit of his design. He loves tech but he just couldn’t make something work the way a pencil and paper did. He’s tried. “Let him suffer,” he says, unconcerned about Bucky because he’s been too cocky lately and he wasn’t even the other guy. Maybe he and Bruce would get along if he ever showed back up again. Thought if Nat couldn’t find him he wasn’t on this planet.

“Sir,” FRIDAY says, apparently picking up on some of the more human cues from JARVIS’ old code. He had put it in with FRIDAY’s own code with the hopes that she’d pick up on it but she only seemed to have found it now. He hopes it’s because she was offended that he told her that she sucks at emotions.

“Fine, what’s he doing? Not cooking?” Bucky seemed to enjoy his cooking and if Tony didn’t watch it his waistline would also enjoy that cooking.

“He isn’t. According to my psychological research he appears to be having a panic attack,” FRIDAY says.

“And what am I supposed to do here?” he asks more because he was annoyed with the AI, not because he was actually looking for an answer.

“Psychology texts are unclear. Protocol appears to be person specific,” FRIDAY says.

“Fucking junk science,” Tony mumbles but he picks himself up off the floor to go figure out why Bucky wasn’t being cocky and annoying like his new usual self. Or why he wasn’t sending memes from the god damn renaissance.

When he finds Bucky he’s curled up in the corner of his room breathing heavily and Tony sighs, “FRIDAY told me something was wrong?” he says bluntly.

It takes a long moment for Bucky to respond but eventually he does, looking up from his hands, “I don’t know why I’m here,” he says vaguely.

“If your intention is to make no sense congratulations, it’s working. You’re here because you wanted to be here. And apparently because you intended to not kill people in a fight with HYDRA if it came to that.” The therapy was working he guessed. Either that or Bucky was finally kicking himself out of his slump, whatever, Tony didn’t really care either way.

“No, that’s why _Bucky_ is here. I don’t know why _I’m_ here,” Bucky… his alter ego says.

“Don’t you show up when Bucky is stressed or whatever? That’s when I’ve noticed you showing up but what do I know?” It’s a legitimate question given that he didn’t actually know much about Bucky at all and he didn’t care to.

“He isn’t stressed, he hasn’t been in a long time and I… I don’t know what that means,” Fake Bucky says.

“It means he’s getting better, duh.” Which meant he could get out of Tony’s house and go hang out with Steve again or whatever he might want to do.

“And where does that leave me, huh? Does anyone even _care_ what happens to me or do you all think that I’m expendable? He can’t jus get rid of me! Bucky doesn’t get to dump all his baggage on me and then ditch me when it’s convenient to! He doesn’t get to do that to me!” Fake Bucky snaps, obviously not catching a fucking clue here.

“Oh fuck off, this isn’t even _your_ body, it’s Bucky’s. Have you ever stopped to think that _you’re_ the one who invaded, not him? What the hell makes you think he owes you anything, James? Just because you showed up to deal with his problems doesn’t mean he owes you shit for it, not when you’re something he made to deal with his problems. If he didn’t do that there wouldn’t _be_ a you. So deal with the fact that he wants his damn body back, it’s his to take,” he says harshly.

Something he says must hit hard because Bucky- James- whatever- blinks rapidly. “What?” he asks after a moment.

“Bucky doesn’t owe you anything for not being able to deal with the torture, and you don’t get to act like he does,” Tony says again though less harshly this time.

“No, not that. You called me James, why did you call me James?” he asks.

“Because you don’t have a name and it’s weird, Bucky doesn’t use James so I figured I’d call you that,” Tony says.

“I don’t need a name, soldiers don’t have names.”

“Uh, yeah they do. My best friend has been in the military for over twenty years- which makes him a soldier- and his name is Rhodey. Actually it’s James Rhodes but I call him Rhodey because… that’s a long story. Point is soldiers _do_ have names, HYDRA weapons don’t and you’re not a HYDRA weapon you’re a person no matter how much Bucky probably doesn’t want you to be. So you get a name and it’s James because I don’t know what else to call you and Soldier is fucking creepy and dehumanizing.” And, as he said before, Bucky didn’t use the name even if he didn’t seem fond of Bucky. But that was probably because Bucky had baggage and Tony could relate. Some days he hated his own name too- too many bad memories and crappy associations to his past.

“I don’t… don’t have a name,” James says.

“No, HYDRA didn’t give you a name because they never meant for you to be a person. But you were just complaining about people not thinking of you as your own like… entity so here I am, giving you a name. And it’s James. So deal with it and stop complaining about Bucky wanting his life back. Of course he wants his life back, probably as much as you want to keep your life. The problem is that you don’t get a right to stake a claim on a mind and body that was never meant to house you. You’re here now so I guess everyone is going to have to deal with it, but you can’t be mad that Bucky wants his mind back. It’s his. But you being here is weird so who knows, maybe you’re more than a coping mechanism by now. You’ve been around for seventy years so it’s probably possible. Fuck if I know, I don’t know anything about multiple personalities,” he says honestly. And he wasn’t going to get FRIDAY to do extensive research either. Probably.

For several long moments James is silent, “it’s dissociative identity disorder,” he says eventually.

“Whatever,” Tony mumbles, rolling his eyes, “do I really look like I care?”

“Yeah actually you do. You’ve always cared more than anyone else and I don’t know what to do with that,” James admits.

“You could start by feeling guilty that you killed my mother,” Tony offers.

“Oh so what if I do? That isn’t going to bring her back so I don’t see why you care,” he snaps.

“I’m a fucking genius, it doesn’t take my intelligence to know you feeling guilty isn’t going to bring her back and I really _really_ hate when people who have never experienced that kind of loss use that argument because you don’t even know how stupid you sound. I know she isn’t coming back no matter what anyone does, I don’t want to bring her back, I want to bring her justice.” It was the same argument Natasha had used when she initially talked him into taking Bucky- that nothing he could do would bring his mother back but he fucking _knew_ that. Interestingly Wanda had cringed at that but that was probably because she knew how he felt. After all she reacted to him the same way he reacted to Bucky, including living with him though that was more her own choice rather than a quasi forced arrangement. Probably didn’t make seeing him any easier, which was why he tried to avoid her and later why he stupidly tried to protect her in all the wrong ways.

“Justice doesn’t matter to Maria, she’s dead. You want justice for your own piece of mind,” James says.

“Yeah, I do. The affects of death don’t matter to the dead, they aren’t here to deal with it so yeah, my reasons are selfish. Is that so wrong?”

James shakes his head, “no. But I can’t say I feel guilty because I don’t feel anything, I wasn’t meant to. it wasn’t until after that I started feeling things- just not towards any of my victims. It’s just a cold, dead space in my memory. It’s why Bucky feels so guilty you know, because he doesn’t feel guilty at all and he doesn’t know what to do with that.”

“So… you told me that you didn’t feel guilty for killing my parents because…?” Technically all that crap James spouted was a lie then, so what the hell was going on?

“I told you how I feel about them now. Howard was a cruel sonofabitch, he got what he had coming. Maria, maybe she was more complicated maybe she wasn’t, but she didn’t exactly do much to help you and you needed help. You’re so fucked up now because of her leaving you there with that asshole of a father you had so I don’t see why she deserves sympathy. So I didn’t technically lie, I just lied about _when_ I felt those things. Well, technically I didn’t disclose that the feelings were new,” he says, seemingly gathering his bearings and going back to being his asshole self.

“You don’t know anything about me or how fucked up I might be because of Howard’s abuse.” No one really knew the extent of Howard’s abuse and they would never know. No one needed to know, including himself but unfortunately he didn’t get a choice.

James snorts, “yeah I do. You really think Obadiah didn’t have a backup plan? He didn’t know about me directly but he had ties with HYDRA. They sent me to watch you for awhile, give an assessment for your surprisingly Howard-like business partner. I was rather fond honestly; you were unabashedly selfish for selfishness sake, completely willing to indulge yourself just because you wanted to. And you did all of this because you were doing your damndest to be Howard- which your Obadiah encouraged. Howard was quite the manipulation tool and he used it against you frequently. You always responded just the way he wanted you to. Now that annoys me because I like you better when you were selfish. You didn’t put up with shit then and now you take in people you hate just to gain the approval of someone you _actually_ hate.”

That… was new. “Why didn’t you tell me this before? You don’t like… still have something in there that can be tripped so you’ll kill me or something right? And I didn’t take you in so Steve will like me; we’ve always hated each other and always will. I took you in because I felt bad for trying to kill you.” What the _hell_ would he have done if Obi had sent the fucking _Winter Solider_ after him? Though apparently he didn’t actually know about James but that was still a terrifying thought.

“See, that’s the problem. You should go back to not feeling guilty about doing what you want when you want; it might solve a lot of your issues. Kick me out of you don’t want me here, you don’t think Bucky owes me anything because I took his shit so why the hell would you owe me because I took you shit? You don’t owe me anything because you wanted me dead, anyone in your position would. So stop trying to please everyone around you and do whatever he hell you want, except do it for you this time. It’s sad watching you walk around like a kicked puppy all the time so say fuck it and do what you want. It’s kind of freeing, I’ve done it,” James says, grinning at him. The wink is what creeps Tony out though.

“First, I was a jackass and an ignorant asshole then and no one should think that me is the better me. Two, fine, I _will_ do what I want and I’m taking Americat back so where did she go?” She better be fine or there was going to be some hell to pay.

“Selfish you was the better you because at least then you were willing to stand up for yourself, even if you were an ass. You’re still an ass, embrace it, it’s a good quality. And the cat ran off when it found out I wasn’t Bucky. Stupid animal hissed at me and ran off when I tried to pet it,” James says, rolling his eyes.

“You only think being an ass is a good quality because _you’re_ an ass. It isn’t a good quality, FYI. FRIDAY, where is Americat?” he asks the AI.

“She is currently hiding under your bed,” FRIDAY tells him.

“Cat has good taste. Well, now that you’re back to being an asshole as usual I’m going to go get Americat out from under my bed because she’s better company than you,” Tony tells James, walking off to go get the cat.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oi, the holidays have had me busy! But I finally managed to catch up on all of my writing just before the new year! 
> 
> I hope you guys like it :)

Wanda sits at the island while Tony makes coffee, “so no new news on HYDRA?” he asks as he dumps far too much sugar into his coffee. Disgusting in her opinion.

“Aside becoming a victim to FRIDAY at the Tower no. Feisty AI,” she says.

“They get to anything FRIDAY?” Tony asks.

“What do I look like? Of course not,” the AI says, almost sounding offended despite being… well, a computer. “And I am not a redhead just to clarify,” the AI says after a moment.

“Yeah, pretty sure you’re a blonde with how ditzy you’ve been lately,” Tony mumbles, “so out of curiosity what did you do to our lovely HYDRA guests?”

“She called me,” Wanda says, “and terrorized the HYDRA agents with lights and noise until I got there.”

“I recently watched ‘Home Alone’ and decided to do the AI version of that. Well, _after_ they broke on. It appears that they knew how to get past your initial security measures but they did not know how to deal with security measures after that. I have been working on background checks for the agents and new security measures for the doors,” FRIDAY says.

“It can _watch_ things?” Wanda asks, frowning. She never ‘met’ FRIDAY’s predecessor JARVIS but she knew that the AI functioned similarly and that the team was very confused as to why Tony treated it like a human. FRIDAY didn’t appear to be an exception.

“In a manner of speaking, yes. Let me know when you get the information on the agents FRIDAY, and update all security measures here too. And send an update to Steve.” Tony throws the last bit in on a whim, she can feel it, and she can also feel the apprehension on his head about the update. She felt the same apprehension when he went to let her in this morning but he seems to be doing a goo job of avoiding thinking about the problem. He’d slip eventually and she’d know, it always happened whether anyone wanted it to happen or not.

“He’s worried,” Wanda says though for what purpose she isn’t sure. Tony likely knew that- actually the brief flash of irritation in his head told her that he knew that- but she felt she had to try. Steve… maybe he wasn’t reacting so well all things considered but he was still a good man who was worried about a good friend.

“Boy do I know that. I don’t really care,” Tony says bluntly and the flash of fire and hate that follows the comment in his mind confirms that he isn’t lying about that. She shakes her head a little to try and clear the fire but Tony’s emotions are strong and they stick more than a normal person’s would. Sometimes she wondered if he did it on purpose, but she knew he didn’t.

“He’s just trying to make sure his friend is okay Tony, I know you know what that’s like,” she says, thinking of that other friend of his. The one Tony trusted with a suit when he didn’t trust anyone else with one. No, that wasn’t entirely true. He trusted Pepper with a suit at least before this mess. His mind tended to shy away from thoughts of the redhead these days.

“Yeah, I _do_ know what it’s like to worry about a friend but given how great of a friend Steve is I didn’t think he cared much about anyone but himself,” Tony says in a bitter tone that permeates his mind and body language too. Wanda winces at the true hate there because it was an emotion she rarely felt from people. Hurt was the usual undercurrent of anger and hatred, but Tony was more than hurt at this point. He _loathed_ Steve, which surprises her considering this was not at all how he felt about Bucky.

“That isn’t true and you know it,” she says. Steve… he had his moments but she didn’t think he was selfish at all, he’s hurt more than anything and he didn’t know how to deal with it. Most didn’t in her experience.

“Can you come up with another reason for how he could possibly look me in the eye and tear me a new asshole for keeping secrets all the while he knew that his best buddy _murdered_ my parents? Because even he thought that was selfish,” Tony says. That bitterness gets stronger and Wanda has to fight to keep her stomach from rolling from the emotions she was being steeped in. _God_ , was this how she felt about Tony? She hoped not because it hurt to be around let alone actually feeling it firsthand.

“Tony you tried to _murder_ him when you found out, he was obviously understandably worried about Bucky’s safety,” Wanda says. Clearly he had reason, even if it was flimsy, to keep that to himself.

“Like you did to me? Or T’Challa? Funny thing with the team, bad behavior doesn’t ever seem to matter unless I’m the one doing it. And you went after the whole team, not just me. I get it, trust me I do, and I get why T’Challa reacted like he did but none of us were right. So how come he only ever expects the worst from me?” Tony asks. At that a flare of hurt arises and his mind flips through memories too fast for her to keep track of who was doing what when. But the look on Steve’s face is the same every time.

Wanda looks down for a moment because he’s not wrong. “Is Bucky alright?” she finally asks to change the subject.

“Bucky is fine. He’s out doing… something,” Tony says, waving a hand around.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Wanda asks.

“No but he’s more highly trained than any other HYDRA agent. Pretty sure he’d be fine in a fight and I’m not going to keep the guy from his morning Frappuccino even if I think he’s disgusting for drinking them. How’s Vision?” Tony asks.

“He’s… learning,” Wanda says, unsure how to phrase Vision’s feelings. He wasn’t sure about them either and she couldn’t put his experiences to words quite yet. Either way he was still the most preferable company to her because his thoughts, even when chaotic and disorganized, were far less strong than everyone else’s. It hurt less to be near him than someone like Tony, or even Steve, who was steeped in their own emotions and past traumas.

*

Tony’s phone buzzes and he heaves an annoyed sigh. It was either Wanda updating him on any possible HYDRA break ins at other properties of his- which was unlikely, FRIDAY finding information on HYDRA agents, or Bucky. He wasn’t impressed when he woke up himself and found his cat gone but Tony didn’t feel safe around him, how could he leave a cat with him in good conscience? It wasn’t like the cat had a little Iron Man suit to keep it safe… he looks down at the cat.

“FRIDAY, scan the cat,” he tells the AI. He has some ideas about cat armor and it was probably a good idea given how often he got into trouble anyways. FRIDAY could fly the cat off to safety. His phone buzzes again and he sighs, picking up the damn phone. The first message is from Bucky, who was irritated with some lady at Starbucks, and the second was one of those god damn Kermit the Frog dark side memes. For a moment he can’t believe Bucky would send him something so insensitive so he decides to call him about it. “ _Really_?” he asks when Bucky picks up the phone.

“I thought it was funny,” Bucky says in his own defense.

“You really thought was funny?” Tony asks in disbelief.

“Little bit, yeah. Did you uh… _not_ find it funny?” Bucky asks.

“Gee, you’re a genius. No I didn’t find the damn meme funny.” God even knew where he was with all that squawking in the damn background too.

“You know what, the world would not be at a loss. You hear that yelling? That’s the woman screaming at this poor Starbucks worker. Seriously, one half of me just wants to leave it be and the other half is seriously contemplating just letting the Winter Soldier loose on her,” Bucky says.

“Not. A. Funny. Meme. Bucky. Did you forget that the Winter Soldier _actually_ killed my parents? And his name is James now because I can’t call him the fucking Soldier in public, that’s weird and creepy. Now get out of that Starbucks before you murder someone,” he tells Bucky.

“The worker would have found the meme funny,” Bucky mumbles and he hangs up.

“FRIDAY, ban Bucky from memes.”

*

Steve paces back and forth and Wanda can feel the outpouring of worry and upset from Steve that started shortly after HYDRA decided to plan a poorly thought out attack on the Tower. The benefit to having worked with HYDRA is that Wanda knew how they operated and this wasn’t a planned attack. This was a couple of agents, probably rookies, who wanted brownie points with the higher ups only to have taken on way more than they bargained for with FRIDAY. The AI did an excellent job scrambling them around until she showed up to knock them out and call Steve in to question them.

“Are you sure he’s okay?” he asks, eyes wide. Images flash through his mind of the look on Tony’s face when he was going after Bucky and Wanda found them all familiar. There was betrayal at first, then anger, more anger, hurt, and most of all there was determination. That was not how Tony felt about Bucky now, she could feel it. That was how he felt about _Steve_ of all people. Curious.

“He wasn’t there when I was but I can assure you Tony has no real negative feelings towards him, at least not underneath the surface of his thoughts. He thinks he hates Bucky but the way he actually feels is different. It’s probably going to take him some time to realize that because he wants to hate Bucky,” she says. It had been shocking to her when she left that she felt the same way about Tony that Tony felt about Bucky. She wants to hate him for what he’s done to her, her family, but prolonged exposure told her that he is not the man she constructed and reconstructed him to be even if that would be easier. It appeared that Tony felt the same way about Bucky- he very much wanted to hate him but the fire wasn’t there. The real hate, that fire he wanted to feel for Bucky, that was saved for Steve and now she wondered why. Aside from the obvious.

Steve frowns, “how could you tell?” he asks.

She waves her fingers by her forehead, “telepath remember?” she jokes but Steve gives her a _look_. “His, mind is very open and easy to read, much like the rest of him at least when he allows for it. For some reason he is quite open around me when he isn’t usually with others and so his thoughts are easier to read. It means that I get a lot more from his mind than for the average mind- namely that I get the undercurrent of his real emotions under the ones that he tells himself he’s feeling. He doesn’t hate Bucky,” she says. She almost adds that he does hate Steve but that will add nothing to the conversation. Steve was worried about Bucky’s safety- something he maybe should have worried about _before_ placing Bucky in Tony’s care, but she understood nonetheless. But Bucky was fine; in fact the snippets of Bucky that she gathered from Tony’s mind suggested he was more than okay.

“But… he told me something the last time we spoke. Something about a second personality,” Steve says, “that can’t be good.”

Wanda shrugs, “that doesn’t seem to worry Tony much, at least not enough that I would pick up on it. He seems to have a steady unease around Bucky and his… other personality, I’ve felt him in there but I’ve also felt the strength in Bucky’s mind. I think he’ll be okay,” she says. The other personality was sharp, wounded in ways Bucky wasn’t and prepared to lash out at the world whereas Bucky preferred a calmer method of dealing with things. But she has only felt him above the surface once and Tony didn’t focus on that personality more than Bucky himself so she didn’t know much about him. Just that she didn’t think Bucky was at a lot of risk for harm. She could ask Tony more about the other personality later.

She can feel that Steve is not at ease though, and that his worries continue to linger on Tony. He worried that HYDRA possibly getting ahold of Bucky might make him snap or something, worried that the Winter Solider would make a comeback and that he’d try to kill Bucky. She clearly watches as the losses fly by in his mind- the Commandos, Peggy, his parents, Bucky the first time, his own life, the time he used to live in, his trust for structures and governments, his trust in Tony.

“I have a question,” she says somewhat hesitantly but she needed to know. She has been thinking of this for some time and her discussions with Vision have gone nowhere in this respect because he was lost too. Steve’s mind pauses for a moment before it continues to whir on as he gestures for her to continue her thought. “I… when we met I made you see your worst fears, all of you saw your worst fears but my primary target was Tony. I hurt a lot of people when I unleashed the Hulk, and I sided with Ultron stupidly in an attempt to gain revenge on the man that killed my parents. T’Challa, when he first encountered Bucky, did something similar when he tried to kill him several times. I know that you chased us both down and eventually we both saw reason but… but you didn’t seem to expect us to see reason from the beginning because you knew we were hurt. I know you tried to reason with Tony- I’ve seen it in both your minds, but why did you expect him to listen when you didn’t expect that from T’Challa and I?”

The subject has weighed heavily on her since her making uncomfortable connections with Tony and his thought process. She knew what it was like to share a roof with her parents’ murderer, how uncomfortable that was, but no one expected her to like Tony because they didn’t seem to like him either. But now, like herself, he was realizing that his parents’ murderer was not the monster that haunted his dreams at night, he was just a sad broken man and that made him hard to hate. And she had never had to deal with Tony’s recovery, or have to come into contact with him if she had no interest and he only ever pushed it when he decided it was a good idea to have Vision keep her at the compound. No one expected her to fix Tony, and no one seemed to expect T’Challa to make Zemo mentally well again either.

She didn’t want to relate to Tony, to understand his pain but she knew what he felt having to deal with his parents’ murderer, except he had to be a whole lot more involved than she ever had to be. Why did no one expect her to deal with Tony’s obvious mental health issues when she is perhaps the most qualified person to address his problems right at the root? She could pull them straight from his mind and have him be completely free of his PTSD and childhood traumas, and that might even influence his decision making skills in a very positive way. But that was not expected of her like it was of Tony- he had to fix Bucky because he hurt him, but she hurt Tony too. Why was he held to standards she was able to avoid?

“That’s different Wanda, T’Challa _just_ lost his father, obviously he wasn’t going to see reason so I tried to do damage control. I tried that with Tony and he didn’t listen, he had time to process what happened and he just… _lost_ it,” Steve says and his mind takes on a panicky edge as an image of Tony hitting Bucky flies through his mind at the same time as an image of Bucky falling from the train. Steve was afraid that he would lose Bucky again, that he’d be too late for the second time and lose what little he had left from his past life. She understood that but…

“But Tony has full well admitted to not processing his parents’ loss. And I underwent several years of experiments with my brother to become nearly undefeatable in a fight just to kill him. I had years to process my grief too and I didn’t process it, I just… got angry and stayed that way and people got hurt because of it. Tony did that too- a little bit because of me even,” she admits although she didn’t want to. But if she had not made Tony live out his worst fears he would likely have left the vision stone to Bruce and then he and Bruce wouldn’t have run the final experiment that they had and maybe Ultron would never had destroyed Sokovia. Or maybe he would have run the tests with Bruce anyways, they would never know.

“I don’t… I don’t like seeing myself in him but it angers me that you expect him to fix his parents’ murderer because he hurt him when I don’t have to fix Tony because I hurt him and the rest of you, and a lot of other people due to my own issues just like Tony did. T’Challa didn’t seem to have to owe Bucky anything either. It isn’t fair that Tony owes Bucky for hurting him when we’ve all hurt someone,” she says, trailing off when she realizes there was nothing else left to say on that front.

Steve’s face softens a little, “Wanda, you’re a _kid_ , he’s a grown adult-”

“No. We are both adults- I stopped being a child the second my parents died and I volunteered to be experimented on by HYDRA. Do not patronize me like that. Maybe I was young when this all started but I am twenty-five years old. If I don’t know the difference between right and wrong by now than that is a problem. I knew what I was doing when I volunteered for those experiments- why the hell else would I have volunteered for them? I knew what I was doing when I unleashed the Hulk, brainwashed all of you, and tried to kill Tony. Even if I was a child the effects of those events were impossible to not understand. Adult or no I don’t think anyone has a responsibility to nurture their parents’ murderer because they hurt that person. They deserved it,” she says harshly.

“It wasn’t even Bucky!” Steve yells at her, “how could you say that?”

“Because it doesn’t matter if it wasn’t Bucky, it was his face that was there! Do you think that bomb had anything to do with Tony Stark outside of the design? No! But it was his name on it so he was responsible and that was why I lashed out. Are you really naïve enough to belief that grief makes sense? You have lost more than anyone I know, you of all people should know that when you lose something and you’re looking for someone to blame it isn’t difficult to point fingers. You _know_ what that is like because you reacted the same way Tony did when you were about to lose someone you care about. Of _course_ you would nearly kill Tony to save Bucky- you couldn’t handle the loss even if you ignored Tony’s own pain in favor of yours. Because that makes _sense_. No one wants to lose someone they care about, and not one person in this world owes anyone because they hurt someone who hurt them.” If she didn’t owe Tony than Tony didn’t owe Bucky.

She knew he disagreed- that was half the reason his mind was so open to her. Because he agreed that he killed her parents. He felt he deserved the any pain she inflicted on him and for a long time she agreed with his self-depreciative thoughts. Now she wasn’t so sure.

*

The Soldier- _James_ \- can feel the urge building and he tries his best to squish it down but it was useless. So he goes out, curious as to how this was going to play out. He didn’t want to hurt people but… but that was what he was made to do. Apparently it was foolish to assume he would have any other function but to incite violence so he sets out to find something to take his compulsion out on that isn’t Tony. Maybe he’d get lucky and find a HYDRA agent to kill.

James wonders if Bucky got the urges too, but he knows that Bucky would never tell him if he did anyways.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to update another story I was working on but then nah. So here I am with another chapter of this.
> 
> Warnings for referenced child abuse.

What Tony had even ben looking for he couldn’t remember, but what he _found_ was a bloody sweater that someone had done a freaking terrible job hiding. For a long few seconds he has no idea what to do or how to react because _shit_ he was currently _living_ with the guy who presumably maimed someone at best. “FRIDAY, scan the news for anything that stands out, something that only someone who is enhanced could do,” he says. He takes the sweater with him down to the lab while FRIDAY runs her scans so he could take a breath and figure out what the hell was going on.

“Nothing was found,” FRIDAY says.

“Bullshit, scan again,” Tony says without looking up from the sweater.

“Do you have… criteria that I should be scanning for? Nothing in my initial search has suggested that Bucky has committed any sort of crime. Though I reviewed the cameras from last night and that blood was not on that sweater when he left, and his attempts to hide the sweater were minimal at best. He looked directly at the camera when he stuck it under some of your dirty clothes,” FRIDAY says.

“Good, you’re learning to do more than what I asked, fantastic. So you know he committed some sort of crime-”

“Unless the blood is his own,” FRIDAY interrupts.

“Then he wouldn’t have bothered hiding it, FRIDAY,” Tony points out.

“It does not appear that he _did_ hide it. Had I noticed the blood on the garment when I should have I would have alerted you immediately like I have been instructed to. But I did not and instead I simply noted odd behavior from Bucky. I chose not to alert you because odd behavior does not mean danger,” FRIDAY says.

“Well it does now, anything seems even remotely off you tell me _immediately_. And pay attention when people walk into my house covered in blood, what the fuck FRIDAY? How do you even miss that?” he snaps, irritated with the AI.

“He was not covered in blood. The blood was only on the left sleeve of his sweater, some on his torso, and some on his pants. If he killed someone he was clean about it. However I will scan for anything unusual in the future,” FRIDAY says.

“You should be scanning for anything unusual _now_ ,” Tony tells her. Goddamn AI.

*

In the end he decides confrontation was the easiest way to go about handling this while FRIDAY ran her scans again. This time Tony provided her with a list of things a super powered individual could do based of his knowledge of Steve in particular, but also Natasha, Bruce, Thor, and himself. She better have something when he gets back too or she was going to be in some shit.

“What the hell is this?” he snaps at Bucky- and it _was_ Bucky- when he finds him. Bucky seemed to be humming along to some horrible tune from some popular rap song. Ugh.

“Uh, my sweater?” Bucky answers, barely giving the damn thing a second glance.

“And why the hell is there blood on it?” he asks.

Bucky whips around, “ _what_?” he asks, looking closer at the sweater now. And then… and then something weird happens. Tony sees clearly when he registers the blood but his face goes oddly blank for a second, kind of like it did when Tony has seen his personalities switch only there was no personality switch at all. Bucky just continued to stare forward with no response at all, even when Tony waved his hand around.

“FRIDAY, run a scan on Bucky’s vitals,” he says.

“Everything appears to be normal, sir,” the AI says. He frowns for a long moment; trying to figure out what to do when FRIDAY tells him that she has found a story that met the criteria he gave her so he goes back to his lab after instructing her to keep an eye on Bucky.

*

Tony sends everything he has to the therapist- fat load of good she was- but she was supposedly the expert so whatever. He didn’t know what the fuck he was doing and FRIDAY was clearly terrible at psychology so she was the best he had in the way of experts on what to do with deadly assassins.

She frowns at him a little as he explains what was going on via video call. “Is the cat alright?” she asks.

He makes a face, “the fuck kind of question is that? Yeah the cat is fine, how is that even relevant?”

“Given that you’re fine it tells me he wasn’t looking for an obvious and close target. You could defend yourself with relative ease in your own space- you’d have at least some of the advantage here. The cat wouldn’t, and if his goal was to simply hurt someone or something than either you or the cat would have been far more likely targets,” she says.

“Who gives a damn if I’m fine? Everyone should care about the cat, but I don’t really see why that matters when some other sap ended up the victim,” he says. Tony didn’t read the information FRIDAY sent; he just sent it off to the therapist so she knew what the hell was going on and could… do something with it or whatever. Like he knew.

“Senseless violence doesn’t need a reason and the target doesn’t matter. The fact that the nearest targets were left completely unharmed tells me that this was planned, probably well planned given his past. His target was no accident, which means I’ll be able to determine a motive,” she says. And o _kay_ , that was a decent reason to care but still, it didn’t change that _someone_ missed something and the guy the he was currently sharing close quarters with still had violent tendencies. He was _not_ impressed.

“Fine. What the hell do I do in the meantime?” he asks. Drop kick Bucky out of his house was what he wanted to do but he doubted that was going to be the solution here.

“I trust that you have some way to keep tabs on him?” the therapist asks.

Tony holds up a tracking bracelet that he made when Bucky first moved in but never had gotten around to using, “ _hell_ yeah.”

“Good. It would do well to keep him on your property for now. Is there somewhere else he can go? Because I’m not certain staying with you was ever a good choice. Who’s choice _was_ that anyways?” she asks.

“Well I’m glad we agree that he’s on house arrest, he was going to be on house arrest anyways because he’s obviously a danger to the public. And it was Steve’s decision to have him stay with me,” he says. God knows why, the last time he saw the guy before moving in he tried to kill him, what made Steve think this was a decent plan he’d never know.

“Steve Rogers?” she asks.

Tony rolls his eyes, “no, the other very important Steve in Bucky’s life. Yes, obviously Steve Rogers. God knows _why_ he thought this was a good idea, it’s not like Bucky and I get along very much,” he says sarcastically.

“Any chance Bucky could stay with him then?” Tony shrugs because he didn’t really care either way. He knew he was going to be stuck dealing with this one way or another anyways so it didn’t really matter to him. She sighs and turns to look at the rest of the information Tony sent her and frowns, “did you read this?” she asks.

“No, is it necessary for me to read the news story?” he asks in a snarky tone.

“Not particularly, but it would likely be of interest to you,” she tells him. He highly doubted that but FRIDAY pulls the story up on another screen so he figures he’d read the stupid thing. The headline makes him snort loudly but the therapist tells him to read it.

The last thing Tony had any interest in was some idiot child who thought _Jesus_ saved them but whatever. He scrolls down to the story and skims it, man found beaten in his house, no signs of forced entry, police don’t know how the intruder got in, blah, blah. But the next part of the article, that makes Tony sit up in interest. According to the cops the man had been abusing his kid for some time and the child _claimed_ it was Jesus who saved him- obviously wrong but whatever- but it was Jesus’ supposed words that stood out to him. _It’s okay to tell, he won’t hurt you anymore_.

“This child strikes a remarkable resemblance to you,” the therapist says, interrupting his reading. Frowning at her he scrolls to the picture included in the article and his eyebrows shoot up because yeah, that kid _did_ look a lot like he did at that age.

“That’s _weird_ ,” he says.

“This footage you sent, this isn’t altered?” the therapist asks, interrupting his thoughts again.

“Yeah, I totally altered it and sent it off for some unknown reason given that I have absolutely zero reason to do that,” he snaps sarcastically.

“Mr. Stark, I can do without your attitude. I asked because these actions are not the actions of a highly trained assassin who remained more of a myth than a reality for seventy years. These are barely the actions of a rookie on a crime spree. He wanted you to catch him,” she says.

“That’s pretty stupid of him. Why would he even do that? And why did Bucky freeze up when I asked about it?” he asks.

“He wanted you to catch him because he felt guilty- and I suspect his target is due to guilt too. I don’t think he _wants_ whatever violent urge he has so he purposefully chose a target he felt connected to- a target that looks quite like you who was suffering abuse the way you were. It’s possible that he froze because he didn’t know how to handle your reaction, neither did the alter so you ended up with what you have now.” That… made sense in a weird way, minus the bit about him, not that he wanted to admit that.

“Why would he choose a target that had anything to do with me? Why would I matter to him? It isn’t like I have before, I’ve been out and out told that he doesn’t feel guilty for killing my parents,” he points out.

“I told you when I approved the cat, he has a high opinion of you. Both of them do,” she says but she doesn’t elaborate. It occurs to him a little to late that patient- doctor confidentiality was a thing and she’s probably said too much anyways. Fucking rules, this was why he didn’t like them.

*

James could have done without the fucking house arrest but whatever. The thing he could have done with even less of was Steve Rogers but he at least got the rest of the day before he showed up to do whatever. Tony has made himself scarce and he got that, sort of anyways. It wasn’t like he went out of his way to take his spontaneous bouts of want-to-kill-someone out on someone who actually deserved it at all. And by Tony’s standards too, not that he didn’t agree, but he figured Tony would at least appreciate his efforts. It was better than just some random person, kind of like saving Bug Eye from those twits who tried to rob him awhile back.

“You’re thinking awfully hard,” Wanda says, making him jump because he hadn’t even heard her walk onto the patio he was sitting on.

“Go away. And take Steve with you,” he mumbles. Great, he showed up early. _Ugh_.

“Steve won’t be here for another few hours. I came because… well, because I know what it’s like when your mind goes awry,” she says.

“You control minds, what the hell do you know about your own mind doing things you don’t want it to?” he asks. Wanda had no god damn clue what she was talking about.

“Do you think I really want to hear what people think about me? About each other? I never… I never wanted this kind of power even if I volunteered for it. I thought I would end up more like Steve, super powered but still mostly human. Now I don’t know what I am,” she says. She sits down beside him and looks over the cliff what Tony built his house on. It was stunning and deadly, he could appreciate that. Nature was something he was rather fond of because it didn’t seem to matter how much control humans tried to claim over it, nature always found a way to kick humanity’s ass.

“I don’t know what I am either. I’m not even sure I’m human,” he says honestly. He was never meant to be human, to feel, to have likes and dislikes. He was meant to be a cold, merciless killer and that… that backfired somewhere along the way. He used to think Bucky was the more human of the two of them but now he wasn’t sure about that. Being human was never something he wanted though, not feeling when he hurt people was what he was meant to be and now that was all messed up with the violent urges and the stupid emotions screwing all his programing up in his head.

“I can… I can help. Therapy would probably help eventually but if you don’t want to feel like you have to hurt people I can take that away. Probably one of the only benefits to my powers,” she says softly.

“No offense but the last time someone was in my head they turned it to scrambled eggs so I would strongly prefer you fuck off,” he says, smirking meanly at her.

Wanda sighs, “I understand why you feel that way but I would not touch anything you didn’t want me to,” she says.

“Sure, I’ll take your word for it,” he says sarcastically.

“You should. The last time I went messing with minds I shouldn’t have been in I almost instigated the end of the world and I did hurt several innocent villagers when I set the Hulk loose. I learned my lesson from poking at things in minds that do not need to be poked at,” she says.

“Is nearly ending the world the last time you were in someone’s head supposed to inspire confidence? Because it doesn’t. Stay out of my head,” he tells her, a note of finality in his voice. Aside from the obvious reasons for not wanting Wanda in his head he was certain that Bucky didn’t get the urges that he did. Which meant if they went so did he, violence was what he was built for after all. It made sense that his entire personality formed around it and now he was afraid that without it he would go too and it didn’t want to die. He didn’t want to hurt people but if it was him or them, well. He couldn’t really be blamed for a sense of self-preservation.

“If you change your mind all you have to do is ask,” Wanda tells him and she gets up, walking off. James sighs in relief because he was nervous about Wanda, about what she could do and her past with HYDRA. Steve trusted her and he knew that was supposed to mean something to him, to Bucky too, but neither of them really trusted Steve and only Bucky would be stupid enough to trust someone who could melt his brain at will.


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, this went in all sorts of directions I wasn't expecting but hey, I have a head cold and my brain feels like cotton so that's why. But I liked my cotton brained creations so here we are.
> 
> And some insight into Steve finally!

Bucky isn’t sure how he was supposed to take moving back in with Steve and he wasn’t sure how, or even if, he could bring up his worries with his therapist. But she made a point- he personally victimized Tony whether or not he meant to and it was kind of cruel to ask him to keep Bucky around. He hadn’t thought of it like that but she made a point, it was hardly like he’d want to hang around with a HYDRA member whether or not they knew about him or participated in his torture. It was the principal of the thing. But that didn’t mean he wanted to move in with Steve no matter how happy Steve seemed about this.

The reason he had been placed with Tony to begin with was for security- despite not seeming to get along Steve obviously had faith in Tony’s capability to keep people out. Bucky agreed, but not in a security sense. If he’s learned nothing else it was that Tony didn’t open up to… well near anyone. There was that friend of his, the one who was now paralyzed, but Bucky didn’t know of anyone else outside of him and that ex girlfriend he didn’t seem to talk too much. If Steve was right about security Tony probably kept things a bit too tight.

And now… now he was stuck back with Steve while they hopefully solved the HYDRA thing. “Are you alright?” Steve asks, leaning in the doorway. He looks worried, attentive and oddly Bucky finds it somewhat unnerving because he was used to Tony’s generally standoffish nature.

“I’m… fine,” he says eventually because it was the best way he could describe the myriad of feelings he currently had. It was mostly true, he was fine even if he was confused, apprehensive, unsure, and a little upset.

“You sure? Because you don’t look fine,” Steve says.

Bucky laughs softly, “you don’t know what ‘not fine’ looks like,” he says, shaking his head. “Trust me Steve, of all the shit I’ve been through this has got to be the least awful.” It wasn’t fun, but this was living the dream compared to what he was used to.

Steve winces hard, apparently realizing this, “that… that wasn’t what I meant, you just look like you have mixed feelings about this,” he says. Which is fair, because he did, but he wasn’t sure he and Steve were on the same page.

“I do have mixed feelings about this, but that doesn’t mean I’m not fine. When is anyone one hundred percent sure of anything?” he asks. Even Tony, who seemed to have the most conviction out of most everyone he knew, doubted himself consistently. Steve also had a lot of conviction but Bucky thought he should doubt himself a little more often that he did. Even when he was still skinny he had way too much confidence, always getting into fights and all that.

“I’m one hundred percent sure about you,” Steve says softly, meaningfully.

“You shouldn’t be,” Bucky says in the same soft tone. He wasn’t even sure of himself, and he certainly wasn’t sure about… James? Tony picked the name and Bucky supposed that was fine, it wasn’t like he used the name and it was covert enough that no one who knew better would note the difference for more than a moment.

“But I am, Bucky. You’re a good man,” Steve says, stepping closer like he was trying to plead with Bucky. Or get a skittish cat to come closer.

“Being a good man isn’t enough Steve, your actions have to back that up and my actions don’t. They never have,” he says honestly. It wasn’t meant to be a dig towards himself, it was just a fact. He’s never been the hero type, not the way Steve was before this whole mess.

“That’s not true Buck, you’ve sacrificed so much, _done_ so much. You couldn’t help that other stuff,” Steve tells him.

“That I killed people, you mean. Call it what it is Steve, I _murdered_ people in cold blood and most of them didn’t deserve it. Now I have another personality that apparently thinks that’s a good thing or whatever. Come on, you can’t possibly be one hundred percent sure of someone like that. _I’m_ not one hundred percent sure about that.” He was actually closer to the negatives as far as being sure about that. His mind… he hasn’t been able to trust it in a long time, and when Tony and T’Challa figured out how to remove the words he thought he was fine and he wasn’t. Tony was right to want him on house arrest; this was where he needed to be.

“I know you Bucky, maybe better than you do at this point, and you’re a good person even if you’ve done bad things. You have to believe that,” Steve says. He takes another step closer and Bucky lets out a heavy sigh.

“This right here is why I have mixed feelings- you _don’t_ know me. _I_ don’t know me either; no one does because there hasn’t been a me to know in a long time. You have to understand that I was stripped of everything that made me human, Steve, and I don’t know who or what I am outside of that, not yet. The person you know hasn’t existed since I fell in those mountains, maybe even before that. A lot of shit happened with Zola and his crew and god even knows _what_ happened to you when I was gone,” he says, shaking his head. Imagine his surprise when Steve shows up one day a good foot and a half taller saving his ass instead of the other way around. That had been… weird.

Steve frowns, “I _do_ understand that Bucky, that’s why I’m trying to help. I might not be doing a very good job but I’m trying. And you already know what happened to me, you remember the serum, right?” he asks almost gently, like he was trying to coax a memory out.

“I know you’re trying to help,” Bucky says, “and I appreciate that, I do. But you aren’t trying to save me, you’re trying to save that guy you loved all those years ago and I get it. I don’t have anything here either, everyone I love is dead too and that’s scary, especially since I lost me too. But you can’t save the man I used to be Stevie, that person is dead,” Bucky says softly. His old nickname rolls off his tongue easily enough, fitting in nicely where it used to but it tastes different somehow. Almost like there was almost a century between now and the last time he used that name, and seventy years worth of history between what that name meant and what it was now. Or rather what it wasn’t. “And yes, I remember the serum, that wasn’t what I was talking about and I think you know that.”

“That isn’t true Bucky, you just need some time to get back to where you were. I know it’s hard, _trust_ me I know, but you can do it. And no, I don’t think I do know what you mean by that- the serum didn’t change me. Well, I mean it did physically,” he says, letting out a huff of laughter, looking down at himself. Yeah, physically he was a whole new person but Bucky wasn’t convinced that was where it ended.

“Listen to me Steve, _really_ listen. I’m not, nor will I ever be, the Bucky Barnes you knew. I know it was nice to reminisce when you found me last but come on, we’re not those people anymore and it was nice to pretend for a little bit but then that video played in the bunker… I don’t know, I guess I realized that I couldn’t just slip back into who I was. I can’t just go back to how things were and pretend that nothing changed, that I’m not seventy years into the future, that I didn’t get tortured, that I didn’t kill people, and that people didn’t suffer because of me. And you… you changed _long_ before you went into the ice and to be honest I’m not sure I was ever fond of the change,” he says, shaking his head. He was probably going to bring it up with the therapist later, his feelings on Steve and the serum, but for now he guessed he should talk to Steve about it. he was going to be living with him and the rest of the Avengers minus Clint, who was with his family.

“I’m the same person I’ve always been Buck, I’m your best friend, I always will be,” Steve says, lips trying to tip up into a smile but he fails to make it.

Bucky shakes his head, “no Steve. The second I saw you afterwards I knew- you aren’t the same skinny kid from Brooklyn and that Steve, _he_ was my best friend. And that Bucky, he was _your_ best friend. But we aren’t them and I’m not sure you realize that. You remember when we were about to go off on that one raid, the one where you asked if I was ready to follow Captain America into war or however you phrased it. I told you that I was following the skinny kid from Brooklyn that was too stupid to back down from a fight and I meant it- that new you, that wasn’t you at all and this you, this is like a third you. Don’t you get it? You keep trying to cling on to a past that isn’t there and you keep trying to make it a reality in a future that doesn’t support it. I’m not your Bucky anymore, and you’re not my Steve. It’s time you properly mourn that instead of trying to force yourself and me into roles we don’t fit into. Maybe if you accept that you’ll feel better.”

He could see that Steve was suffering, that he didn’t know what to do, how to act. It was why he dropped everything so fast and so readily for Bucky. Because he was a man of the past who didn’t know how to live in the future and he was trying to cling to all he had left of his time. But Bucky wasn’t a symbol of that past anymore either, and pretending that he was wasn’t going to do anyone any good.

*

Wanda sits down next to Bucky, feeling the swirl of his mind, his emotions, and something else lingering beneath the surface. His other personality, she knew now. She has never come into contact with someone with dissociative identity disorder before but she recognized what it felt like now so she would recognize it in the future. “Steve seems upset,” she says, wondering why his emotions had taken a sudden uptake in pain earlier. There were other things too, like sadness, grief, denial, bargaining… it was like he was going through the stages of grief, but all at once instead of in stages. And he was missing acceptance.

Bucky sighs, “yeah, might have went too fast too soon with some stuff I’ve been thinking about,” he says. His own mind goes through emotions, flickering from upset, confusion, misunderstanding to annoyance, fear, and more confusion.

“What did you say, if you don’t mind me asking?” She was curious because Steve’s mind tended to be stable most of the time with the exception of when he was around Bucky, or thinking about him. Then it was like he was feeling too much all at once and his mind overloaded though from the outside you would never guess. He was good at keeping it together; Wanda had to commend him for that.

“I told him that the people we used to be are dead and that he should mourn their loss instead of trying to recreate something that’ll never happen again,” Bucky says and Wanda snorts loudly, snickering.

“Oh, you went too far too soon. That’s a bitter pill to swallow, take it from someone who was something and hen got powers that made me into something I no longer understand. It can be easy to cling to who we were in the past but for me my mind didn’t allow that. I couldn’t see anything before and now I have no choice but to see everything. Seeing things for what they are with no filters, no sugar coating, just the stark, naked truth hurts and it isn’t a pleasant thing to suffer through. Especially when you want to believe something badly enough to warp the truth,” she says, thinking of Tony. Oh how badly she wanted him to be a heartless villain just like she constructed him to be. But then she met him, had to spend time near his mind, to hear his thoughts. He was not the villain she thought he was; no matter how much she wanted to ignore that.

It hurt to accept that sometimes the truth would shake your beliefs to the core, making the foundation crumble beneath you. It was easier to believe the lie then, because it meant you didn’t have to start over. Foundations were hard to build and lies were always more pleasant than the truth. The truth didn’t care how you felt, but lies let you think whatever you wanted with no consequence to yourself.

“I know. But I can’t pretend to be something I’m not, I did that with HYDRA and I can’t do that again, not when I’m supposed to be free,” Bucky says, sharp pain emanating from his mind. Wanda winces but she understands, at least she thinks. She felt what Bucky felt for sure, but she was certain that she understood too.

The sit in silence for a long time before Bucky speaks again, “can you get rid of him?” he asks. They both know who he meant even if he doesn’t mention James by name.

“No. The two of you… you’re part of each other, if I got rid of one both would go. At the very least there could be disastrous effects on the remaining personality,” she says. Steve had asked her the same thing not long ago and her answer was the same. Steve wasn’t willing to sacrifice Bucky and that was wise, not that she would have attempted something like that anyways.

“But… you told him that you could get rid of the violent urges, aren’t those as much a part of him as he supposedly is to me?” Bucky asks.

Wanda shakes her head, “no. Violence is not his nature, he is more than that and so are you. It’s easier to suppress a thing that doesn’t make up the whole than it is to eliminate a whole when something else is attached to that whole. I could obliterate your mind with a simple thought, but that’s not what you want,” she says.

“But violence _is_ his nature, Wanda, and he has to go,” Bucky says, shaking his head. She could feel his frustration but his words weren’t true.

“That isn’t true. Urges don’t make a person who they are- I have the urge to eat American junk food frequently, but I am not my urge to eat American junk food. That is just a piece of a whole. He has the urge to hurt people, but that isn’t who he is. If I remove him I remove a piece of you too and I’m not willing to see which piece goes,” she says.

“And if I am?” Bucky asks.

“Then I will refuse. My powers, my choice.”


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alriiiiiight, so James took this in some whole new directions. Guy is a stone cold bitch but I like him. 
> 
> Anyways, I hope y'all like it :)

Tony hadn’t expected to feel much of anything when Bucky left except relief maybe. But now, sitting in his empty house with no one else around sending him ridiculous memes every once and awhile was kind of… lonely. And Americat was just a sad reminder of a time when he got out-of-the-blue texts of pictures with snakes in hats.

In the end he had no fucking clue how to handle that because he wanted to hate Bucky, he thought he _did_ , but now he didn’t know. As much as he loathed to admit it he missed Bucky now that he was gone, James too even. He didn’t even know _what_ he missed given that there was nothing about his parents’ murderer that he should find even remotely desirable let alone likable. Eventually he video calls Rhodey because he needed some help here and Rhodey was the only one he knew that might even remotely understand what he was feeling here. Unfortunately for him Rhodey just looks confused.

“I… don’t mean to be rude but maybe you like Bucky because he’s not the monster you made him out to be. I get that he killed your parents, Tones, but he didn’t really do it when he was in his right mind. Maybe you’re having a hard time with this because you’re having a hard time reconciling the fact that Bucky _wasn’t_ really Bucky when he killed your parents,” Rhodey suggests. Tony opens his mouth to respond that Bucky wasn’t really the one he was overly concerned with but he realizes that Rhodey doesn’t know about James and it didn’t seem right to just out him like that. He didn’t know how Bucky or James would feel about that and why did he even care about either one of their feelings?

“I… yeah I get that I just… don’t want to?” That didn’t seem quite right even if it was true that Tony didn’t want to miss Bucky it was- “It’s not that I miss him when he’s gone, I mean it’s normal to miss company of some sort when you live alone its that I miss Bucky because I _like_ Bucky. What kind of person _likes_ the person who murdered his parents?” Tony asks softly, looking down. He already had so much guilt for how he left things with his parents, and how he reacted afterwards because he exploded in a really big way and a _lot_ of people suffered because he did his damndest to be Howard. He didn’t need this on his shit pile too, not after all that was done with Steve, the rest of the Avengers, the Accords, Rhodey, and Pepper. He was fucking tired, okay; he didn’t want something else to obsess about religiously.

Rhodey winces and it’s about here that Tony realizes the poor guy is completely lost on what to do. “I… don’t think I’m qualified to help here,” Rhodey says honestly. This was the sort of thing Tony liked about Rhodey though- he at least admitted when he didn’t know something about boy did Tony need a lesson in that when they first met. Sometimes he still needed that lesson but he was raised to think he was right all the time- it took a long time to break a lifelong habit.

“Yeah I got that feeling. I just… I’m not sure how to handle this at all either and we all know how this ends,” Tony says, rolling his eyes. It was always the same shit with him over and over again- he’d do something stupid in a fit of emotion, vow never to do something stupid like that again, get placed in a new situation and do something stupid in a fit of panic all over again. In the beginning it hadn’t really been that bad- he managed to clean up his weapons, take down some terrorists, avenge Yinsen, and then Vankov showed up and shit hit the fan in a big way. And then Killian showed up and that made things way worse on the tails of New York.

And then, and then, and then, just like he told Steve, things kept piling and piling and, and, and- what was he even supposed to do with all of this? Hope to hell he didn’t make another stupid decision in a fit of passion without thinking things through? He’s a genius- he knew what the data showed him he’d do and the data suggested it’d end in disaster too. So he was stuck now because he knew exactly how all of this was going to end, it was just a matter of how he’d get fucked six ways to Sunday while accidentally fucking someone else six ways to Sunday. Or a whole goddamn country in the case of Sakovia.

“No, we don’t,” Rhodey says, frowning at Tony.

“Yeah Rhodey, we do. I freak out and do something incredibly stupid like I’ve done pretty much since the beginning of… well my whole life if I’m honest here. It just hasn’t blown up in my face until more recently. It’s what I always do, and probably what I’m always going to do,” he says. His father always did tell him he was destined for failure except that one time in a video that also showed him yelling at his mother to get Tony the hell away from him. The dissonance was real.

For a long few moments Rhodey is silent, “I know that sometimes you tend to do things without thinking… but I sort of know how you feel now in a way I didn’t before. Has it occurred to you that maybe you aren’t just flipping you lid? I haven’t been through nearly as much as you and earlier I nearly got into an argument with my toilet because I was just so damn frustrated with it and I know that’s because it’s harder to use the toilet now than… well before it wasn’t a big deal. Maybe you’re just doing the same thing and lashing out emotionally in some way because you’re hurt and you think at the time that what you’re doing will work. It isn’t unreasonable,” Rhodey says.

“It is when it’s never worked for you,” Tony points out. Pretty much every time he’s tried the hero thing since he was done with the Ten Rings _something_ has gone wrong, sometimes in some very large and terrifying ways.

“Yes it is Tony, it’s always a new decision with a new possible outcome. How can you know possibly know that it’ll end badly every time? It’s just bad luck Tones, nothing else. And I get it man, I _get_ it. I remember that time in that diner with the kid and you freaked out- honestly after watching you write _help me_ on some kid’s drawing completely zoned out and unaware I was freaked out too. But I didn’t understand what was happening, why you were acting like that and I get it now. Yeah, maybe you’ve done some stupid things but Tony you’ve been making decision in panic mode for _years_ and no one has dealt with it- including you. I know what that can do to men, I’ve watched it- of course is never ends well,” Rhodey says meaningfully. Yeah, partially why Tony didn’t understand why Rhodey reacted the way he did- it wasn’t like this sort of thing was new to him. But maybe he didn’t make the connection or maybe… maybe Tony could just ask.

“I know you’ve seen this sort of thing before, but why did you never make the connection with me? You didn’t at my birthday either- and there was no way I thought that one could end well so your theory on me not knowing is fake,” he says. He probably should have known about the stone thing too- in what world could poking at an alien object go well? He should have just run from all thing aliens to begin with like a normal person minus Bruce and Thor. Except that stone wasn’t really all that alien to Thor. He already saw what happened when SHIELD messed around with that tesseract thing, he already knew his idea was stupid and he went along with it anyways. The results were his own fault.

“You aren’t a soldier Tony, and I know you’ve been in literal war zones but it didn’t really occur to me that PTSD occurred in other situations. And, if I’m really honest, you jus don’t seem the type. You’re one of the strongest people I’ve ever known- I didn’t think it was possible for you to lose it like that. I was wrong. And yeah sometimes you knew your decisions were dumb right away but that’s just you. The stuff that matters though, like Ultron, the Accords, everything that happened with the Mandarin and Vankov, you couldn’t predict any of that,” Rhodey says. Tony can tell he has more to say though- he had that look of concentration he got on his face when he was thinking things over so he waits a moment, letting Rhodey gather his thoughts.

“And I think that we’ve all been sort of ignoring the obvious. You told me about some stuff with Ultron, about how Steve said that a world covered in armor was cold. I don’t think any of us understand how you relate to that suit and I think by misunderstanding that all of us, Pepper included, have done a good job of alienating you from us. I think that maybe we should have tried to understand you better and maybe that would have helped,” Rhodey says. He looks down at his lap, obviously not happy with his past actions. But Tony agreed- people laughed, rolled their eyes, or nodded along when he said he and the suit were one but it was pretty obvious no one really knew what he meant by it, least of all the other Avengers.

“Symptoms remain consistent with PSTD, anxiety, and depression. Treatments suggested are-” FRIDAY starts but Tony cuts her off.

“FRIDAY that was not an invitation to be a therapy AI, please stop. Go back to doing things you were meant to do, like liking AC/DC and thinking psychology is junk,” Tony says.

Rhodey snickers softly but the laughter builds until he’s doubled over laughing, “I love when the things you build have weird consequences. Remember when Dummy chased your Masters thesis supervisor out of your lab because he read him as a threat for some reason?” he asks and Tony sighs, remembering the bugs he had had to work out of the bot.

“Remember when JARVIS figured out flirting?” Tony asks and Rhodey sighs deeply.

“I can’t believe my girlfriend was more interested in JARVIS than me. I’m still mad about that, and I’m also mad that the next thing JARVIS ended up in also managed to screw me by getting a love interest. Not that this is Vision’s fault but still, JARVIS based things really need to stop figuring out women,” Rhodey says. Tony tries to keep it together but it was just too funny not to laugh and Rhodey only looked a little unimpressed with him.

*

James decides quickly that he hates the other Avengers. Steve kept giving him hopeful looks thinking he was Bucky and that he was going to go reminisce about the good ‘ol days before HYDRA tortured another personality out of him. Natasha clearly knew and kept trying to talk to him to get a psychological read, and Clint was an ass and that was saying something coming from a guy who was so stone cold he told a man he didn’t regret murdering his parents. Sam was an absolute petty asshole for some reason that Bucky seemed to know, that ant guy was doing his damndest to be the new Bucky but Steve wasn’t reacting to his being fawned over at all, and Wanda seemed distant. That was weird for her but he left it be, he wasn’t the touchy feely type.

It didn’t take him long to deduce that he hated it living in some random safe house surrounded by fields and boring. So it was isolated and he obviously couldn’t do much damage here unless pissing on Steve’s ugly petunias counted, whatever, but it wasn’t the same as Tony’s. At least Tony didn’t skirt around him, make fake attempt to understand him, stare at him like he expected him to be someone else, or flat out avoid him. Tony was open and honest and he didn’t play games like everyone here did- he was unapologetic about everything and James liked that. These people were all public personas and expectations and it made him want to vomit. And kill things, which was contrary to the point of his being here but he figured killing the petunias wasn’t so bad. They were hideous anyways.

Bucky remains hidden away, overwhelmed with Steve’s expectations and James was more than happy to fail at being Steve’s best friend. The guy was a self-righteous dick who only pretended to care about Bucky to cover his own self-interest. _Yawn_. James had better things to do than deal with that crap, like smuggle his phone away from whichever Avenger had it- Scott ended up being the lucky winner- and call Tony because he was interesting. And then hope like hell Tony didn’t either hang up on him or send him to voicemail.

Collecting his phone was embarrassingly easy; Scott hardly stood a chance against someone as highly trained as him. The guy could control _ants_ , that was like the shittiest super power _ever_ coming from the guy whose super power was stemmed in mental illness and torture. But he’d take that over controlling _ants_. Plus he was incompetent at playing a simple game of ‘keep Bucky’s phone away’, which indicated he was going to be a terrible Avenger. After successfully taking his phone back from Scott he makes his way to the basement and hides himself in the back corner away from the door and finds Tony’s number, dialing before he can feel something uncomfortable in the pit of his stomach. He didn’t like this whole ‘having feelings’ thing; things were easier when he was numb to all.

“Hello?” Tony answers, interrupting his thoughts.

“Oh uh, hey,” he says in a completely suave manner. He was an embarrassment to life itself. Bucky seems to nudge his agreement and James resents that.

“James? If you’re calling because you killed Steve just know that I will totally fabricate a story to cover your ass. Actually I won’t but I’d kind of want to,” Tony says and James laughs. He didn’t understand the animosity between the two because he didn’t know the history, but he was on Tony’s side for no other reason than liking him better. Bucky flat out told Steve that he didn’t really like him and he still hung around like a lost puppy waiting to be picked up instead of taking the damn hint and walking away.

“Steve isn’t dead though I wouldn’t care much if he was. That redhead keeps trying to chase me down to get a read on me,” he says, wrinkling his nose at the thought. He already had one unwanted shrink he didn’t need a second one.

Tony snorts, “she got herself a job at my company with my assistant just to get a read on me,” he says. The way Tony says it indicates he wasn’t too happy about it either and James couldn’t really blame the guy.

“What’d she come up with?” he asks, curious as to what the redhead saw of Tony. He didn’t seem to sense the same animosity with her that existed with Steve or even Wanda, and oddly Scott, so he wondered how much she agreed with Team Leader.

“She said that I was a terrible fit for the Avengers but Iron Man was fine. Too be fair she was right,” Tony says bitterly.

“Yeah, because Rogers hates you. That isn’t your fault,” James points out. The redhead was right not to put them together; he could see how their personalities would clash badly. He could see how they could work too but it seemed a bit late for that if for no other reason than that one time they beat the fuck out of each other because Rogers stupidly kept sensitive information to himself. It seemed pretty obvious to him that Tony would have expected Rogers to tell him about his parents’ death and that seemed reasonable enough to James.

“That isn’t why Natasha wrote that- I uh… sort of lost it at a party and made a fool of myself and put a lot of people in danger. And to be fair I also sort of instigated Steve’s hate for me. I kind of told him that everything special about him came out of a bottle after he called my building ugly and told me I was totally unworthy of being a hero,” Tony says.

James can feel the seriousness of Tony’s tone but that bit about Steve makes him _cackle_. “Oh man, that’s precious. See, this is why I like you, you’re _real_ and you say it like it is. Even if you got that Steve bit wrong- he was something special _until_ he got that fucking serum. Before that he was like you, so fiery and willing to fight against what he thought was wrong, he was always up front about things and he knew when to bend a rule or all of them to get what he wanted. Then he got that serum and it shoved a self-righteous stick up his ass. Personally I think that serum took everything that was Steve away. But your insult is still really funny,” James assures him.

He tried to imagine Steve and Tony in each other’s faces, Tony wearing some band shirt probably, and a soft pair of jeans in his lab with Steve looking like a an over groomed golden retriever. Steve would probably look pinched and annoyed like he always did when he wasn’t looking at Bucky and Tony would look like he had a fire lighting him up from the inside with all that passion. He could see them smacking at each other blow for blow and Steve would aim where it hurts- he seemed good at it if Tony’s reactions were anything to go by, but Tony is a genius. He knew where to cause the most damage too and he wasn’t about to go down without a fight and Tony was damn scrappy, he wasn’t afraid to get his hands dirty but he’d at least admit it too. Steve, not so much. James would pay money to watch Tony insult Steve, especially if he got to bring popcorn.

“It’s still weird to me that you see anything in common with Steve and I,” Tony says.

“That’s because you only know _Captain America_ ,” James says in a pretentious tone, “I knew the real Steve and he was awesome. You’re better because you actually know I exist and you have way better facial hair. And I like your music,” he says because he’s looked up some of the bands he’s seen on Tony’s shirts. He liked the sound and the lyrics were interesting. Bucky liked all that new pop shit, especially some song about cakes and oceans. James thought that the guy needed his hearing checked because his taste in music was _embarrassing_.

“See? FRIDAY, learn from James, _he_ likes AC/CD,” Tony says, presumably talking to the AI like it was human again. That was a weird habit James hadn’t figured out yet but Bucky did it too, asking it random questions about things. Like whether or not cats sweat. Bucky had stupid questions. “And what’s the difference? Between Captain America and Steve I mean,” Tony asks.

“Aside from Steve being generally not a jackass? Pretty much everything actually. I think Steve only likes Bucky so much because he’s lost himself and he thinks Bucky being around will bring him back but I think he’s pathetic and that Bucky deserves friends that don’t think he’s the solution to his identity issues,” James says bluntly.

Tony remains silent for a long moment, “wow, you’re particularly catty today. What did he do to you?” Tony asks.

“See? You get it, when you see me you aren’t trying to hard to see some dude from the forties that you _completely miss_ that a whole other person is looking back. I mean technically even Bucky is a whole new person too but seriously, how many basic observation skills do you have to be lacking to miss me?” he asks. He thought his presence was obvious; Tony’s never missed it so he must be at least a little right.

“Ah, that explains it. So he didn’t notice you,” Tony says.

“Not even a little. He didn’t notice _anything_ was off and I don’t think I act anything like Bucky,” James mumbles. Fucking asshole.

“You don’t. You carry yourselves differently, you’re a lot more bold and blunt, and Bucky is far sillier even when he’s being serious. Honestly you’re a real bitch. Oh, and Bucky doesn’t seem to like to be too close to people, you don’t care about that at all. Sometimes you use physical closeness as a method of making people uncomfortable because, well, we’ve covered that you’re a bitch. And your voices are different too. Did Steve seriously not notice? How is that possible? He knows Bucky better than anyone else currently alive _literally_ , there is no way he missed you. There’s just no way,” Tony says, sounding down right mystified.

Yet another reason he liked Tony- _he_ paid attention to things like the way James talked and acted. Steve only saw things he wanted to see. Well, Tony did too but he killed his parents that one time so James figured that was a decent excuse to see what he wanted. And he still saw more than Steve. “Well that’s just the power of ignorance I guess, Steve had a full blown conversation with me this morning and I _know_ he didn’t notice. The redhead did, that’s why she’s been chasing me down all day,” he says. It took her a few words and she was suspicious, by the end of his sentence he knew. She even pointed out that Bucky said the cookies he was eating were disgusting the day before, yet James liked them fine. Bucky had no taste buds- those sugar cookies were awesome.

“I… wow. That’s-” Tony starts but Steve cut shim off.

“Bucky?” he calls- from the top of the stairs from the sounds of it. But James hears him start moving down the stairs and sighs deeply in annoyance. “Steve find you?” Tony asks.

“Unfortunately,” James mumbles.

“Bucky?” Steve calls again.

“ _Not_ Bucky,” James calls back, annoyed.

Steve finds him then and walks up looking confused, “of course you’re Bucky, who the hell else would you be?” he asks.

“The entire other person that HYDRA ended up creating when they zapped Bucky’s brain one too many times that you seem content to ignore,” James says bluntly. Tony lets out a loud snort as that and James watches Steve’s body language shift completely, looking much more like he was about to shift into attack mode. “Hurt me you hurt him too, choose wisely,” James says, narrowing his eyes. He might be at a disadvantage given that he was currently sitting on the ground behind some boxes, but he was no stranger to the way Steve fought and he had all of Bucky’s memories now too, unlike when they first met. That was helpful knowledge.

“James, I’m sure he isn’t going to hurt you,” Tony says, obviously trying to calm the situation. That indicated he’d care of James got hurt, or Bucky, interesting…

“He sure as hell looks ready to hit me. Go ahead, I _dare_ you. It’ll be fun even- you can see just what HYDRA made,” James says, giving Steve a taunting smirk.

“Get out of Bucky!” Steve snaps and James snorts.

“The fuck you think I am? A poltergeist? I’m a not a ghost sweetheart, I’m a _person_ and this body is my home too. This isn’t some ‘demon be gone’ movie crap, there is no going anywhere for me so if you really love Bucky you best learn to accept that real quick,” he says sharply.

“Don’t tell me what to feel,” Steve shoots back.

“Than don’t tell me not to exist. I didn’t ask to be made, and I’m not going to let some self-righteous jackass made me feel bad about my being here either. So deal with the fact that your best friend- and I use that _loosely_ \- has a different self in there too and that I’m not going anywhere. Or you can stick your head back up your ass and pretend that Bucky is totally well adjusted and ready to be your side kick again to make yourself feel better, that’s what you really want isn’t it?” James asks, head tilted to the side.

“James-” Tony starts but Steve cuts him off unintentionally.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Steve snaps.

“It means that you don’t give a shit about Bucky, all you want is that nostalgic feeling you get when you think of who you used to be. Well you should take some notes from your former self because you were _way_ better before you screwed yourself up with that serum. If you want that back than stop using Bucky as a vehicle to get there. Get off your ass and do the work yourself. It isn’t his job to fix your broken personality,” James responds in a sharp tone.

“Who are you even on the phone with?” Steve asks, conveniently changing the subject.

“Tony. If you want a lesson in you, by the way, take a lesson or ten from him. He’s everything you used to be and more and you’ll never live up to that. Funny that you told him he wasn’t worthy of being a hero when you stopped being worthy the second you turned to serum to make you better. It didn’t make you better, it ruined everything good about you and that’s why you hate Tony so much isn’t it? Because he’s everything you were,” James tells him. Tony and Steve gasp at the same time but he guesses for vastly different reasons. It wasn’t exactly true- Tony’s method of developing a tough skin was far different than Steve’s but the fundamentals were the same even if the personalities were different. And Steve has lost touch with his fundamentals and he was pissed that Tony didn’t, even after going through so much.

“Excuse me?” Steve asks quietly, almost hurt.

“I said that the serum ruined you and that you should be more like Tony. At least he sees what’s standing directly in front of him no matter how hard it is to see,” James says harshly.

“That is _not_ true,” Steve whispers.

“Is so. Tony has never needed me to point out that I’m here, he’s always known, and the old you would have noticed too but you’re too busy pretending that everything is just the way you want it instead of paying attention. I miss being at Tony’s. He at least knew what I needed, and Bucky too.”

Tony and Steve gasp again, but this time Steve sounds flat out hurt.

“You’re a real bitch, but I kind of like you right now,” Tony says. “And for the record I kind of miss you too, even if I don’t understand why.”

James smiles cruelly at Steve, “Tony misses me too,” he says and Steve out right flinches at that. Good. That’ll teach him for not seeing James when he was _right there_ , and this ought to make him so memorably Steve will never ignore him again.


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for some (unintentional) consent issues.

Bucky does his best to avoid people minus Sam because he was not going to let him get away with leaving fifty half eaten cookies in his bed. Sam wasn’t impressed when he found a week’s worth of Natasha’s hair all over his pillows but he started it. Strangely Steve avoids him too, skirting around him every time he sees Bucky and he can’t help but be relieved, even if he had no clue _why_ this was happening and James didn’t seem intent on giving him any hints. Actually James seemed pretty content and Bucky didn’t really want to think of what that meant so he decides to just ignore that. His therapist would probably be disappointed but he could hardly confront James about his issues, they shared a fucking head.

He wonders how much the other Avengers knew about that too. Natasha knew for sure because she made an effort to ask questions that Bucky didn’t know how to answer, or didn’t want to. She didn’t need to know about James. The rest of them seemed unaware though, especially Scott and Sam. Bucky half wanted to tell Sam just to see if he’d tempt fate with another cookie attack but something tells him that Sam was too brave for his own good. Scott… Bucky didn’t know anything about him other than knowing he had the power to control ants. Which was probably the most embarrassing superpower in the world and this was coming from a guy whose superpower was another personality that a bunch of Nazis tortured into him. He felt like he had a leading authority on crappy superpowers and Scott Lang was winning the Terrible Superpower competition by a mile.

A soft knock at the door makes him jump, shaking him out of his thoughts pretty effectively. Steve stands there awkwardly for a long few moments appearing to assess the situation, “Bucky?” he asks, frowning.

“Uh, yeah?” Bucky says. It wasn’t supposed to be a question but it sort of comes out that way, but if Steve needed confirmation that it was him then he must have run into James…

Steve slumps into the doorway looking relieved, “thank god,” he says, “your um… other personality is fucking _mean_.”

Bucky’s eyebrows life because Steve didn’t usually swear, at least not in this kind of situation. Now if he was dealing with someone he didn’t like, well. “Well he is the result of seventy years of torture, pain, and suffering. I doubt that makes a guy warm and fuzzy,” Bucky says, causing Steve to flinch. But his therapist recommended being open about the fact that James existed because ignoring the problem wasn’t going to help it any.

Steve stands there for a moment, considering. “I… he said some things about me and… and…” Steve trails off but Bucky knows what he wants to know.

“We don’t share opinions Steve, only a body. We’re two completely different people,” he says. He wondered if Steve really knew that, if anyone did honestly. According to his therapist Dissociative Identity Disorder was widely misunderstood and demonized despite an abundance of evidence that it was indeed real and most people with the disorder were no more or less dangerous than the rest of the population. Unfortunately for him James decided to buck that trend, but his therapist had thoughts on him too, not that Bucky agreed with most of them.

“Oh, trust me I _know_ that,” Steve says, “but something he said reminded me of something you said awhile ago. He said the serum ruined me, that it took everything special about me and took it away. You said that back… that before when you said you were following that skinny kid from Brooklyn you meant it. That Captain America was irrelevant to you. Do you… agree with your um… other personality?” Steve asks, clearly uncomfortable with the face that James was around.

“He goes by James and there’s no need to tiptoe around his existence. It isn’t as if I don’t know he’s there, most of the time I can feel him there. To answer your question though… yeah I kind of do agree. I remember back when you were skinny and you were… different; you had a fire that you lost when you got that serum. I-” he pauses for a moment to consider his words. “When you were skinny you knew what it was like to have to yell over people to be heard, and if you were really lucky someone would actually listen. Back then you only lost that a little but _boy_ is that gone now. I know you don’t mean to but you talk over people, assume you know what’s best for them when you have no idea what’s going on,” Bucky says.

That was more from personal experience with Steve since coming back, but he could see it elsewhere too. Steve’s heart was in the right place Bucky knew, it was _Steve_ , but that didn’t make assuming what was right for other people was okay.

Steve, though, doesn’t take this well. “And like Tony is any better?” he snaps inexplicably.

“One, _don’t_ talk to me like that,” Bucky snaps back, “and two, I didn’t say anything about Tony did I? We were talking about you so I don’t see how he is relevant.”

“Your- James said that Tony was everything I wasn’t and that if I wanted to be anything like… well like me I should learn from him,” Steve says, clearly bitter about this.

Bucky snorts though because he saw the connections between the two pre- Captain America. “You two have a lot in common, always rushing into things with your big mouths and good hearts, always managing to get into trouble-”

“That is _not_ true!” Steve interrupts, obviously offended.

“What did I just tell you about talking to me like that? _Don’t_. And yes it is true. There are a lot of differences of course, you aren’t the same people but… but yeah, he’s closer to who you used to be albeit with some major personality differences. You’re just… not you, not the one I knew anyways and maybe that’s okay. I’m not the me I was then either and that’s mostly okay, we just need to get to know each other again,” Bucky says, shrugging. It didn’t need to be a bad thing, getting to know Steve again. Hell, maybe it might even help them both to learn who they were to each other so they could grow out of whatever the hell kind of relationship they were in now. They couldn’t go on like this is Steve wanted any sort of relationship out of their interactions and Bucky could use a confrontation with his past. It might help him accept the changes he’s gone through since his capture.

“We _know_ each other Bucky, there’s no _need_ to get to know each other. Why don’t you get that?” Steve asks, sounding exasperated.

“Because I keep telling you I’m not the same and you keep ignoring me! I have a whole other _personality_ in my head, Steve. I’m not the same fucking person, I have a completely different set of experiences now and you can’t just ignore that because you don’t want to accept it! You either get over yourself or there won’t _be_ any sort of friendship,” Bucky says. He didn’t want to just cut Steve out- they _were_ best friends and he thought they could be again if they worked stuff out but that would only happen if Steve understood what was happening. That wasn’t going to happen if he kept dwelling on who Bucky used to be instead of accepting who he is now.

Steve looks like Bucky just punched him and he feels that familiar twisting in his gut that he usually got when he was about to panic over something but this time it came with guilt. “I just… don’t want to lose you too. Again. Still,” he corrects, looking at the ground looking lost and hurt.

Bucky sighs and walks closer, staying just out of reach to avoid touching Steve because the thought of any sort of contact made his skin crawl. “I’m not saying this to be an ass but you’ve already lost me, and I’ve lost you too. We’re both different people now but if we’re lucky then that won’t matter because we’ll work it out anyways,” Bucky says softly. And it would be good to have someone outside of Tony considering he was the only one right now providing any sort of support. Maybe Sam but mostly they just didn’t like each other so he didn’t think that counted.

They remain quiet for a few moments before Steve looks up, giving Bucky this… _look_ that he couldn’t quite read. He remains still, unsure of what else he was supposed to do here until Steve reaches out and presses his hand to Bucky’s cheek, gently cupping it before leaning in and kissing him. He freezes, not knowing how to handle the unwanted contact and not sure how to push away either. His heartbeat picks up just as Steve pulls back and Bucky remains rooted to his spot, unsure of how to react.

“Before the serum I used to wonder about that, my attraction to men. You know how people saw queers in our time, but the serum was supposed to fix the things that were wrong with me and that didn’t go away so I thought that maybe-” Steve blurts out, rambling on until Bucky interrupts him.

“Don’t ever touch me again,” he blurts out, fleeing the scene as fast as possible.

*

“Well what did you do?” Tony asks. Bucky paces back and forth in the basement with his phone pressed to his ear hoping that Tony knew what the hell to do here.

“I freaked out, you know how I am with touch. I think,” he says, pausing in his movements to think over his interactions with Tony. “Or maybe you just don’t try and touch me because I killed your parents that one time but whatever, I don’t like being touched.”

“So,” Tony says, “to be clear this had nothing to do with the kiss? Any touch would have inspired the same reaction?” he asks.

“Yeah, yeah, I just don’t like touch and there was a lot of it and I didn’t know what to do and then I _panicked_ and Steve looked like I gutted him and now I feel guilty and-” Tony cuts him off.

“Hey, hey, take a breath and calm down a little,” Tony says. Bucky takes in a breath at Tony’s request, realizing that he needed that air. He starts breathing deeply, trying to calm himself down before the panic really set in. “You don’t have anything to feel guilty for, you don’t like to be touched, whatever. You uh… you probably should tell Steve it has nothing to do with the kiss though, he probably thinks you reacted that way because of homophobia, not because you don’t like touch. And then tell him not to touch you again, and tell him to tell everyone else that too. Might make him feel like he isn’t being singled out due to uh… kissing you. God, I did _not_ see that one coming, but anyways it also means no one else will touch you either,” Tony says.

That… was reasonable, responsible even. “Oh… oh well you sorted that out way better than I could have,” Bucky says, leaning against the basement wall in relief. Of course Tony would have this figured out, he knew how to deal with Bucky when no one here did and-

“Calm down Bucky, breathe,” Tony reminds him. He takes a deep breath, finding that he had forgotten to breath again when he needed to. Christ, he couldn’t even do _that_ right. “It’s fine, all you have to do is explain what happened to Steve and then reaffirm that you don’t like touch, no matter who it’s from or what form it takes. You’ll do fine,” Tony tells him.

“Yeah… yeah I’ll be okay…” Bucky murmurs, taking a deep breath. “God, this is such a disaster, I should have just stayed with you because you get me. There are too many people here, and too much pressure from Steve even if I know he doesn’t mean it, and I think Sam put itching powder in my bed but I farted on his tooth brush so-”

Tony’s shriek of laughter cuts him off and he stops talking while Tony cackles into the receiver, “oh my god that’s awesome! Do me a favor and fart on Clint’s too. Oh, and tell Steve he has the _worst_ timing in history. Contrary to what romcoms teach you, kissing people right after fights is a generally terrible thing to do. You’re doing fine Bucky, but you might want to talk to your therapist about living arrangements because the last time I got a call James put Steve’s heart in a blender and dumped the contents over his head. It was awesome, but also probably not good,” Tony says.

“Yeah,” Bucky breaths out, “yeah maybe I should.” Things were going terribly here anyways, and in all sorts of ways he hadn’t anticipated. Oddly the only thing he liked here was that Sam was bold enough not to give a damn about his being a highly trained assassin, he was still a petty asshole and the routine of snipping at each other was surprisingly comforting. Kind of like Tony but with more pranks and less harshness. It was nice to know at least one other person around here didn’t tiptoe around him, pretending like he was totally fine like Steve or acting like he was a bomb about to go off like Natasha. He couldn’t say he really _liked_ Sam that much but he could at least appreciate that Sam treated him normally at least compared to how basically everyone else treated him. At least someone in this house didn’t treat him like glass.


	23. Chapter 23

Bucky finds Steve outside sitting on the back step overlooking the back yard and sits beside him. Steve looks over, sort of, but he looks uncomfortable and avoids making eye contact. “I don’t like being touched by anyone, it wasn’t a you thing. I know… we both know what people would have thought of you in the forties. But I’ve spent the better part of my life being tortured and used as a human weapon. Actually just a weapon, they never viewed me as human. Point is I have better shit to care about than who you kiss as long as it isn’t me. But I don’t want anyone to kiss me, or touch me at all. Feel free to spread that around,” he says, attempting to follow Tony’s advice. It was true that he didn’t care anyways, it was hardly as if he missed that queer people seemed to be treated better now and it didn’t bother him. Like he said to Steve, he had better things to care about.

“Oh,” Steve says quietly. Bucky can tell that he doesn’t believe him, which is odd considering he rarely knew what was going on with Steve these days. He rarely knew what was going on with anyone except maybe Tony, but James made a lot of observations about Tony too.

“I have better things to do than lie to you Steve, it isn’t as if I’m gaining much of anything by pretending that I don’t care that you’re… bisexual?” he asks, not sure if his thing with Peggy was real or… or whatever.

“Bisexual, yeah. You really don’t care?” Steve asks, looking over at him.

“Buddy I have a whole other person living in my head, I have bigger fish to fry so no, I really don’t care. I just don’t like touch.” The thought of someone’s hands on him made his skin crawl just thinking about it. He wasn’t sure when it started, and he had no clue if James felt the same way, but touch made him want to throw up, run, and punch someone all at once.

“I’m sorry I kissed you. I… I guess I thought it would be easier to show you how I felt than using my words seems how that wasn’t working. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable,” Steve says quietly.

“Tony says kissing someone right after an argument is a good way to get slapped,” Bucky tells him, paraphrasing Tony’s words a bit.

Steve rolls his eyes, “he would know,” he mumbles and Bucky frowns at him.

“And so would you had I reacted that way yesterday,” he points out, “I don’t understand why everyone here seems to hate Tony so much. Except maybe Sam, but he doesn’t seem to like him much either.” Or Wanda, but Wanda was… difficult to read on the best of days. She seemed on the fringes of the group as a whole, content to watch things from the sidelines or maybe she just didn’t like the other Avengers, who knew.

“Look, you don’t know Tony all that well. He’s not… he doesn’t mean to create the disasters that he does but he’s reckless and arrogant, he doesn’t think before he does things and it never goes well. And he’s not much of a team player,” Steve says.

Bucky snorts because he knew the feeling of dealing with someone like that, “sounds like you back when you were skinny,” he says.

“That is not true and you know it,” Steve mumbles, shaking his head.

“Is so. You were constantly running around getting into fights with people four times your size all because you had a point to prove to yourself and the rest of the world. It was reckless, maybe a little arrogant to think you’d ever actually prove anything, and you sure as hell weren’t prepared to work with a team unless you were the leader. That was fine because you’re a natural at it, or you were, but it seems a bit hypocritical to judge Tony for acting like you used to.” He was always saving Steve’s ass from some jackass who was trying to kick it all because Steve couldn’t keep his damn mouth shut. And he got it, Steve had good things to say and no one would listen but it was sill worrisome to find his four pound angry asthmatic friend in a fight again.

Steve lets out a harsh laugh, “Bucky I did that because no one would listen to what I had to say and I had no choice but to yell about it. Tony has never had to fight to be heard. Actually he does a lot of talking over people,” Steve says, jaw clenching like he’s been a victim of this.

Bucky huffs out something like a laugh though he didn’t find any of this funny. “I don’t think that’s true at all because from where I’m standing all Tony does is scream at people to listen while everyone walks around like no one hears him. You call him arrogant, lacking in team work, and reckless but he’s the only one who had the foresight to put me in therapy. He’s the one who put a roof over my head, paid for my treatment, and has dealt with me personally for months _after_ watching me murder his parents. After James telling him point blank to his face that he didn’t regret it and he’d do it again. And he did it as a favor to you. Those actions are not the actions of the selfish, arrogant narcissist you describe, that everyone else here seems to agree with,” Bucky says.

“There’s a lot you don’t know,” Steve tells him.

“Or maybe there’s a lot _you_ don’t know. How can you look at what he’s done for me and call him arrogant? All of you act like he’s murdered your cats or something when from what I can see all he’s doing is his best while you tell him it isn’t enough. Maybe that’s why he has no interest in being much of a team player, even though I watched him chase you down for two weeks trying to reason with you in some way for the Accords. If you think Tony has never had to yell to get people to hear him you’re wrong, because whoever the hell you’re seeing is not Tony Stark and his yelling doesn’t seem to be doing him much good,” Bucky says, standing. He considers saying more, telling Steve that this was the kind of thing he’s noticed Steve did now when he wouldn’t have before. He never used to like bullies and now he was fine with making a man house his parents’ murderer because Steve felt it was safer for Bucky with no thought to Tony’s mental health.

He doesn’t say anything though; he just leaves Steve on the step to ponder his words while he goes to find some way to annoy Sam.

*

Bucky sits with Wanda in the passenger seat of the car, “do you even have a license?” he asks. He didn’t know a lot about her past other than her being from a war torn country but that didn’t seem like the kind of conditions to get a license in.

Wanda grins, “you know you are the first person to ask me that?” she asks, sliding into the drivers seat of the car.

Bucky slumps a little in his seat, “oh boy,” he mumbles.

“Oh shush, I have a license. And even if I didn’t I can feel the minds and the materials that are all around me at all times. No one would be safer to drive with than me,” she says. Which was fair he guessed, and sort of the reason she was with him anyways. After a rather long conversation with his therapist, and a conversation on her end with Tony, he was going back to Tony’s. It caused him a lot less stress and Tony must have said something convincing to the therapist because she seemed to think he was mentally sound enough to take him back. She had rattled off something about being worried about his reaction to Bucky but moved on quickly to the subject of his relocation.

The only issue was his tracking bracelet thing that Tony had put on him, but it has been put on standby for a set period of time that should allow him to travel back to Tony’s with no issue. And as an extra precaution he was travelling with Wanda who assured everyone that it would be impossible for him to escape her or hurt her. She had cited how she dealt with some guy named ‘Vision’ as proof and everyone seemed to accept that. Bucky didn’t mind because he liked Wanda better than anyone else and she would make sure he didn’t off any hurt someone. Well, that _James_ didn’t do that though when he mentioned that to Wanda she mumbled something about letting James take out the scum of the world. Bucky had no idea what that meant because James seemed to be fond of keeping what exactly happened to get him sent here to himself.

Next time James complained at him that he hated Steve he was reminding him of _who_ go them sent to live with Steve to begin with. That ought to shut him up.

“Think we can get food?” Bucky asks after they had been driving for some time.

“What is it with you super soldiers? You eat a ridiculous amount of food,” she says.

“S’not my fault some dingus injected me with some version of Steve’s serum. I can’t wait to get back to Tony’s though, I have this brownie recipe I want to try and I don’t trust leaving them to cool with Sam around. The brute would probably but one right out of the middle and sideways to be disrespectful,” he says. He only thought that because he’d do that to Sam but still.

Wanda starts laughing, “oh you two should be roommates. The amount of drama alone would be worth making a reality show about it,” she says.

“I don’t know what that means but I don’t want a show with Sam. I don’t want anything but sweet revenge _on_ Sam, not _with_ him.” That asshole stole all his left socks so he set Sam’s alarm ahead ten minutes and hid his running gear. He was an hour late this morning to his usual run, which set Steve behind an hour, and Bucky watched on in glee.

Wanda does stop to get food though, mostly because Bucky continued whining at her for a half an hour about it but still. While she gets the food he texts Tony mostly out of boredom.

_Snakes in hats are adorable but cats in top hats are better_

Steve seemed to hate phones but Bucky thought they were nifty. He managed to get control over that little robot Sam loved with the phone yesterday. He had no clue _how_ but he did it and Sam spent an hour trying to chase him and the little robot down- which was impressive considering Bucky couldn’t go all that far from his set location. Eventually Wanda took pity on Sam and rescued his bot from Bucky but in the mean time Tony got an amused live-text of the whole thing. This stuff would have been useful in the forties when he and Steve were up to some shenanigans and needed a quick way to contact each other. Hand signals always worked terribly because Steve had horrible eyesight.

_Americat is going to kill me I bought her five_

Bucky reads the text from Tony and snorts; of _course_ he’d but Americat a gift or five. Not that she would consider the hats a gift.

_You’ve seen snakes in hats, cats in top hats, but turtles in sweaters are the winner_

Those turtle sweaters got creative and here he thought knitting was a boring old lady activity. Apparently in his time no one had discovered the joy of turtles wearing adorable knitted sweaters. Or if they did they didn’t have a way to share the fact that they made their turtle a sweater. He was born in the wrong era because modern ridiculousness was absolutely awesome, and the pop music was way better too. And now there were snakes in hats and Tony, a much better improvement on the older and obviously infinitely shittier Howard.

“What are you ginning at?” Wanda asks, returning to the car with food.

“Tony discovered cats in top hats and he bought the cat a couple. Also I discovered flash mobs last night, how great is that? Just a bunch of people showing up and doing ridiculous shit for no reason and leaving. That’s the way to live life,” Bucky says. “Oh, and when I was still at Tony’s FRIDAY told me about ordering food online. You can order food and not even have to speak to people or leave your house anymore. The future is amazing, I can tell and AI to order me pizza with ridiculous toppings like pineapples naked in the shower and I never have to speak to anyone. Amazing.”

“Once I ordered four pizzas themed like the four elements for fun,” Wanda admits, “they were disgusting and I am never ordering an uncomfortable amount of jalapenos on a pizza again but it was fun.”

“Shoulda used the water pizza to cool you down,” he says.

“The water pizza had a bunch of veggies on it for the water content, it wouldn’t have done me any good,” she says.

“What was the air pizza?” he asks after a long moment of digging through fries to find a burger while Wanda got out of the parking lot.

“Thin crust, that’s it. Earth was as many toppings as I could get on to it because I didn’t know what else to do. Technically it all came from the earth or ate the earth at some point, it counts,” she says, shrugging. Bucky snickers around his burger, determined to recreate Wanda’s element pizzas when he got back to Tony’s. It would be a fun project and there was actually kitchen space to cook, unlike Steve’s. And no Sam to mess things up.

They drive for awhile before Bucky starts to recognize scenery that indicated that they were close to Tony’s place _finally_. He wanted to pet the cat and he hasn’t heard from Tony in awhile either. He probably got lost in some project or maybe he was talking to that friend of his, well, the _only_ friend of his that Bucky has noticed.

“Do you think Tony would let me stay the night? I’m tired and I don’t feel like driving back,” Wanda says as she turns left.

“Probably. I don’t see why he wouldn’t anyways. You can pet the cat!” He missed Doug, even if Tony insisted on calling the poor thing Americat.

“I can sleep in a bed with memory foam. I miss those,” Wanda says, sighing wistfully. Bucky too, he didn’t know what the hell he had been sleeping on at Steve’s but he was convinced it was meant for prisoners, not citizens.

When they pull up to Tony’s house though Bucky’s hair stands on edge. If Wanda’s clear hesitation to get out of the car was any indication she seemed to notice something was off too. “It… looks fine,” Bucky says eventually but Wanda doesn’t move until he does, both of them making their way slowly to the door.

“Oh, lovely. Please help,” FRIDAY says as soon as they get close enough, swinging the door open for them to reveal a rather trashed looking space.

“No one is here…” Wanda murmurs, carefully stepping forward into the house.

“They left roughly an hour ago,” FRIDAY informs her.

“ _Who_ FRIDAY?” Wanda asks.

“These people,” FRIDAY says, the nearest reflective surface lighting up with images. Something Bucky noticed when Tony had been working on things, his work followed him through the house as he gave FRIDAY instructions to alter things.

The images of the three people in question were blurry and given Bucky’s knowledge of the cameras it was because of speed, not poor quality on FRIDAY’s end. Tony didn’t look impressed as he aimed what Bucky was sure was a piece of the Iron Man suit at one of his apparent kidnappers. “These are the best images I have. They were certainly enhanced- I double checked to be sure but no baseline human could possibly move that fast,” The AI says.

“I thought… didn’t you capture a few HYDRA agents in the Tower?” Wanda asks the AI.

“That is a space equipped to deal with such threats, this is a vacation house. And this time they were prepared for interference from me. They have done something to scramble my ability function and I only sorted myself out ten minutes ago. My creator has been kidnapped and I am useless,” FRIDAY says, almost sounding sad. Bucky would laugh at the absurdity of the whole thing if it wasn’t for the twisting feeling in his gut knowing Tony got kidnapped and probably because of him. HYDRA must have gotten their times wrong and figured Tony was good enough to take. Considering what the man could do with a little brainpower and some basic supplies Bucky didn’t disagree…

“You aren’t useless FRIDAY, you’ve given us a fair amount of information to work off of. Bucky, give me your wrist,” Wanda tells him. He extends his left hand and Wanda frowns, “the one with the bracelet, you twit.”

“Sorry,” he mumbles, handing her his other wrist.

“This won’t hurt,” she tells him. He almost yanks his hand back but red… energy? extends from Wanda’s hands and surrounds the bracelet.

“What are you doing?” he asks.

“Getting this thing off of you so we can go get Tony. Now hold still I have no idea how-”

“Bracelet deactivated,” FRYDAY tells him and the bracelet pops open in Wanda’s energy bubble.

“Oh. I guess it would have been useful to ask the AI to do that,” Wanda says, tossing the bracelet over her shoulder. It lands beside a piece of Tony’s suit looking as sad and abandoned as the armor. “No time to think, Barnes, we need to find Tony,” she tells him, pulling him back out of the house.

“Guess you aren’t going to be sleeping in that comfy bed. Wait, where is the cat?” Bucky asks, stopping to hear FRIDAY’s answer. Wanda stops too, huffing her annoyance but she waits.

“The cat is hiding in the shop. She does not appear to be in a good mood according to my guide on cat body language,” FRIDAY tells them.

“But she’s okay?” Bucky asks.

“The cat appears to be fine aside from an elevated heart rate consistent with stress. I assume that is a normal reaction to watching you owner get kidnapped,” FRIDAY says.

“Great, thanks FRIDAY. If you think of anything else text me,” Bucky tells her and he and Wanda go back to the car to find Tony.


	24. Chapter 24

Wanda has felt James’ mind before, but not up close. When she detected his mind she had been a significant distance away and unsure why what she thought was Bucky’s mind was so sharp and pointed. But James was better at this sort of thing, Bucky insisted, so it made sense to have _him_ find Tony. Dissociative Identity Disorder was not something she was terribly familiar with, and _feeling_ one mind turn into another certainly wasn’t an experience she ever thought she’d feel. That was something she had no idea could even _happen_ and she’s done her research. There were plenty of people who thought this was fake, that the patients were looking for attention or something, but Wanda knew minds far better than she’d like to. There was no way Bucky and James were the same person and that didn’t even include the change on body language and facial expressions.

James grins, “freak you out?” he asks and oh, there was a difference too. She hadn’t noticed it in her minimal time with James but hearing him speak almost right after Bucky had it was impossible to ignore the difference. Bucky, for some reason, didn’t have a Brooklyn accent but James did.

“A little bit yes. Can’t say I’ve ever experienced something like that before,” she says. It was odd though, because she could feel Bucky in James’ mind still, lingering towards the back the same way she could feel James in Bucky.

“Awesome,” James says, snickering. “Also _no one_ thought to inspect the crime scene? Bucky asked about the fucking cat but didn’t consider that there would be a bunch of evidence to look at in the house? This is HYDRA tortured him.”

Wanda flinches but quickly gathers herself, “I can turn back…” she says.

“No I’ll just call FRIDAY and have her show me around. I’ve never needed to be at a crime scene to know what happened there. That was the whole point,” he mumbles, dialing Tony’s house presumably to get to FRIDAY. Wanda wouldn’t have considered that but she supposed the AI would recognize the number and answer. At least she thinks FRIDAY would, it was hard to gauge how the AI reacted to things because it seemed almost human one minute and more like technology the next. Tony always talked to it like it was human though, had with JARVIS too apparently.

The AI does answer and complies with James’ request to be shown around. “One against three and he was still winning. So how did he end up kidnapped instead of them getting killed?” James mumbles to himself. “Oh, there, one of them must be enhanced. Which begs the question of _why_ there was a fight to begin with if one of them could have subdued Tony _before_ he did whatever it was to get the suit to him. Idiots. HYDRA needs to up their hiring qualifications. Come on, I have an idea of where they were headed,” James says to her.

“But… _how_?” she asks.

“Wanda, I once tracked a man around the world with nothing but coin and a scrap of fabric to go off of. With HYDRA their actions are a lot easier to predict because I know them better than they do. That was probably their biggest mistake with me, making a monster and telling it how you work, to master that. They’re going to regret that,” he says in a low voice and Wanda suppresses a shiver.

*

Tony hates HYDRA and everything to do with them. Fucking bastards, he was doing just fine against those three goons until that one used some sort of mind trick on him that made him go numb and pass out. The last thing he remembered was being really pissed off at his arm as it dropped against his will and FRIDAY calling after him. The poor AI was traumatized now but he guessed at least she knew psychology, she could treat herself. God knows he wouldn’t know how to deal with a traumatized AI.

“Who cares about Barnes, imagine what they could do with Stark!” Goon One says, pointing over at Tony. He felt rather undignified tied to the damn chair, but he also wasn’t much of a quitter and these idiots were amateurs. They had no idea he was almost out of his bonds and he intended to keep it that way.

“We were instructed to get _Barnes_ ,” Goon Two says.

“Yeah, excuse me, fuckwits? You couldn’t handle one baseline human with a heart condition. If HYDRA really wanted Bucky back they should have sent people who can actually capture a target,” he points out.

“Well we got you, didn’t we?” Goon Three, the enhanced one, says.

“You managed to knock me out with some mind fucky powers, not capture me. That’s totally different. One is capturing a man fairly and the other is realizing you’re fucked and knocking me out. _Duh_. And that wouldn’t work on Bucky.” He’s seen what the guy could handle, and Goon Three was hardly Wanda. HYDRA really screwed up there because she would have been unstoppable and if _she_ was wiping Bucky’s mind that would have made him significantly more terrifying. Instead HYDRA sent _these_ twits after him and they could barely tie Tony to a chair let alone a highly trained super soldier. He sort of wanted to see them try and take James down because he’d be even less receptive than Bucky.

“What makes you think that wouldn’t work on Barnes hmm? He doesn’t exactly have a healthy mind from what we hear,” Goon Two says and they all snicker like that was something funny.

“God. HYRDA can’t even produce villains with good villain banter. I feel more victimized by the fact that you idiots think you’re funny than the fact that you kidnapped me. And I wouldn’t say Bucky’s mind is all that unhealthy, not anymore.” Imagine these morons finding out that James was a thing, they wouldn’t last five minutes.

“Yeah whatever Stark. Doesn’t matter because you’re going to replace him,” Goon One says.

“Good luck with that. Terrorists already tried to do something like that, didn’t take.” He never really has been the cooperative type, Steve could attest to that. And the last time some asshole tried something like this they ended up dead, he was free, and within two months he completely decimated their entire terrorist circle.

“Maybe they didn’t torture you right,” Good Three suggests.

“Well they just about ripped my heart out of my chest, tried to drown me every five minutes, starved me half the time, and kept me in less than stellar conditions. I’m here, they aren’t. You three definitely aren’t made of tougher stuff than the Ten Rings. You couldn’t even handle me _before_ I called the suit and you only managed after because Dickweed over there remembered he was enhanced.” As if these dumbasses would even be able to hold him long enough to get him to the higher ups for his conditioning or whatever. His hands were already free and they didn’t even notice.

“I didn’t _forget_ that I was enhanced,” Dickweed says in his own defense.

“Then why didn’t you knock me out right away?” he asks, getting shuffling feet in response. “I hope you all know this is going to go terribly for you.”

“Oh shut up Stark,” Dickweed snaps. Tony’s head begins to feel fuzzy and he swears under his breath, managing to get one last insult out before passing out.

*

The third location they find has people in it- they could tell because Wanda could feel their minds in the building. It had made the process of locating Tony and his kidnappers much faster because they hadn’t had to search any buildings and James knew what standard HYDRA procedure was in these events.

“Are you sure you can handle this? Because I don’t want to get in trouble with your therapist because you killed someone again,” Wanda says.

“I didn’t kill anyone last time. Probably wishes he was dead though,” he mumbles. “But no worries, I’ll be _fine_ , I’ll just pistol whip them all and we can get Tony and go.”

“We should probably just get Tony and go, we don’t really need to pistol whip anyone,” Wanda says.

“You just suck the fun out of everything,” James mumbles, getting out of the car and looking across at the building they were in front of. It wasn’t anything special really, just a run-of-the-mill abandoned factory but it meant that people didn’t usually hear the screams outside of the occasional homeless person or druggies. Neither of which police took seriously, so the location was ideal. Plus old warehouses had space and if they planned on any sort of torture, well.

“I can feel Tony’s mind but it’s muddled…” Wanda murmurs.

“Like he’s been hurt?” James asks.

“No. Like someone has stuffed his head full of cotton- I think that enhanced person has the ability to alter minds. He’s messy at it though, Tony’s mind is still moving at a faster rate than it should be if he were truly asleep. His power is weak at best,” Wanda says. James supposes she would know but that didn’t mean he had to like any of these assholes having the ability to make his mind do anything he didn’t want it to. “There is zero way they can overpower either one of us. Your mind is unlike anything this guy would have ever come in contact with- he’d have to subdue you and Bucky and he can barely suppress Tony’s mind. And my power makes me impossible to control no matter how powerful. We’ll be fine, now come on. We have to go get Tony before someone does something none of us will be happy with,” she says, beckoning him forward.

He climbs over the fence that wraps the perimeter easily and turns to Wanda on the other side, “come on, I’ll catch you,” he tells her, grinning.

Wanda sorts, “I don’t need anyone to catch me,” she says. Red energy balls around her hands and than bursts downward, shooting her up into the air and over the fence.

She uses the energy to slow herself to land safely as well and James raises an eyebrow, “that’s pretty cool.”

“It is pretty cool. I can throw cars too!” she says excitedly.

“We gotta work that in somewhere because I want to see it. Where are we going?” he asks. Wanda leads the way while James marvels at the absolute _stupidity_ of the people who kidnapped Tony. There weren’t even any _guards_ around here and they thought they’d be able to hold him in? Americat could escape from this with four broken legs and a very bad cold.

How they thought they were going to keep a super soldier confined in this space he had no idea. “You would think they would have more security…” Wanda murmurs, frowning some.

“Clearly these guys are armatures at best, new recruits trying to score brownie points probably. Plenty liked to try and do stuff like this to look good, most ended up dead.” He killed a few himself too, and he didn’t feel all that bad about it. Should he feel bad about it? Tony seemed to think he should feel bad for his victims but these people were _Nazis_ who killed people and worse. Something told him the world wasn’t bleeding for their loss.

“I know. They always did appreciate that I came back,” Wanda says. James moves before his mind even catches up with him but the red energy holds him back, “whoa, what the hell was that?” she asks as if she had the right to look offended.

“I don’t know if you missed your own damn words but you basically just admitted to being HYDRA,” he snarls.

A brief frown flashes across her face, “oh, no not now. I… I realized I was wrong,” she says, head dipping a bit in shame.

“It didn’t occur to you that joining a bunch of Nazis was a bad idea _before_ you hopped in the HYDRA train?” he asks, shocked that anyone could possibly have a moral revolution _after_ joining Nazis rather than knowing Nazis were horrible _before_ hanging out with them.

“It’s a long story James and we don’t have time for this. I can explain later but right now we need to find Tony, he’s waking up again. We’re on the same side, James,” she says, pleads really and that’s weird. He makes his decision not to do anything about it now but Steve had some _explaining_ to do, letting some ex HYDRA agent with the power to scramble his brain around Bucky. Fucking idiot, not that James was all that surprised.

He lets Wanda lead, if far more skeptical of her now than before because he needed to find Tony and Wanda was an easy way to do that. They circle around the building, sneaking into a half open door. James half wants to return to HYDRA to remind them _not_ to recruit such imbeciles next time because this was flat out embarrassing.

“On your left,” Wanda murmurs just as he hears the shuffling of feet, presumably from one of the goons that kidnapped Tony. James punches him in the throat and leaves him in a heap without looking back. “Jesus,” Wanda hisses under her breath, “we need to make a right up here.”

He follows her instructions but says nothing as he turns. He wants to punch something else but he saves it for whichever HYDRA moron pops up next. Wanda gives him three more instructions before he runs into Goon Two and he kicks him in the chest, sending him flying down the hallway and causing Wanda to swear again. He thinks she might be frightened but of what he had no idea, she admitted herself on several occasions that she would have no problem subduing him. She had no right to be scared of him when she had all the power.

Wanda continues to direct him through the building until they hear scuffling and Tony’s voice unmistakably swearing. James takes off, Wanda yelling after him but he can hear that she starts running too. They find Tony with his arm wrapped around Goon Three’s neck swearing as the good tries to toss him off with little success. Tony still has rope tied to one ankle and even from here James could tell that the knot wasn’t tied right. _Embarrassing_.

“Oh for fucks sakes, would you just pass out already!” Tony snaps, tightening his grip on his kidnapper and looking unimpressed.

“Just let him go sweets, I’ll be happy to kick the shit out of him,” James says, striding over with purpose.

Goon Three just about shits his pants when he notices and tries to take off but he trips on Tony’s rope, sending them both to the ground. “I knew you were all talk,” Tony mumbles as he crawls off of the other guy. “Thanks for the rescue but I had this. You can go round up the other two so we can leave them here for the police to find though,” Tony says and James frowns. “Off you go to find the other two, I’ve got this one. No need to kick ass on my behalf, I can kick ass on my own behalf.”

James listens reluctantly but only because Tony won’t stop giving him this expectant look and it made his gut feel weird not listening. Tony and Wanda do most of the work after that and James stands by, watching for signs that Tony was hurt. Aside from fatigue and a limp he seemed to be just fine though. He didn’t like standing aside and doing nothing, leaving this for some other group of people when he could take care of this himself but Tony kept giving him that look so he remains still until they move to leave and then he trails behind Wanda and Tony as they go.

*

The drive back to Tony’s house was awkward, especially after Tony fell asleep, leaving James essentially alone with Wanda. Something told him that the cops would need more than a few HUDRA agents tied up in a warehouse but Tony had mumbled something about the cops sucking his dick and James didn’t question it. None of his business.

“James-” Wanda starts but he cuts her off.

“I don’t want to hear anything from you,” he tells her sharply and they fall back into silence until they finally get back to Tony’s.

“If you want I can get Tony,” Wanda says softly, obviously trying not to wake Tony.

“That’s fine, I’ll get him,” he says, “go call Steve or something and tell him what happened. And make sure FRIDAY isn’t freaking out. The AI has been sending me frequent texts flipping out.” Or whatever the AI equivalent of that was. Wanda considers his words for a moment but eventually gets out of the car, slowly making her way to Tony’s front door. James didn’t like the idea of coming back here but he didn’t know where else to go either. Worst come to worst, he supposes, he could easily defend himself and Tony.

He gets out too and rounds the car, opening the door to Tony’s side and carefully removing his seat belt. Tony stirs some, blinking himself awake rapidly but James shushes him, “go back to sleep, you’re tired and you need the rest,” he says. Tony frowns some and blinks a few more times, obviously trying to stay awake and James sighs, “always a fucking stubborn ass, aren’t you? Fine, stay awake, your AI is losing her shit so you can deal with that.”

Tony, because he’s a contradictory creature, falls back asleep and James sighs. He takes care not to jostle Tony too much and pulls him out of the car, shutting the door with a hip check as he heads to the house. “Sir?” FRIDAY asks as soon as they get through the damn door way.

“The AI didn’t believe me when I said he was okay,” Wanda says, smiling just a bit at him.

He ignores Wanda in favor of addressing the clearly… worried? AI. “Tony is fine, he just needs to sleep,” James tells her.

“Reading vitals,” FRIDAY says because apparently the damn thing was still suspicious.

“No offense but we wouldn’t bring a _corpse_ back here you dumb computer,” James mumbles.

“That is an inaccurate description of my form, technically I am-”

“Shut up FRIDAY, is Tony fine or not?” he asks.

“Asking a question after ordering me quite is contradictory,” the AI says.

“Answer the question than shut up,” James tells her, rolling his eyes.

“Vitals are stable,” FRIDAY says and falls silent. James carries Tony off to his room and gently lays Tony in his bed. He stirs just a little, curling into a tight ball before his features smooth back out and he starts snoring lightly. James stands there for a long moment, watching him before he turns to leave him there in peace.

The cat walks in as he is walking out and out of courtesy he extends his hand to the cat but the stupid animal only hisses loudly at him and runs off to Tony’s bed, hoping onto it and curling up behind Tony, glaring at him as she settles. Fucking biased cat that only liked Bucky, screw the damn cat. He flips the animal off before retreating to the living room to attempt to clean and to make sure Wanda didn’t go anywhere near Tony.


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess what y'all! I got into a program for writing and television that was really exclusive! Like lets maybe a couple hundred students in the program exclusive. Go me! I have a future after my Bachelors degree now! What a load off my chest. 
> 
> But to the story- this one features James and some very good points and a conversation with the therapist that also stars James The Asshole, AKA James in his natural state.

Tony sits back in his seat and sighs. He had no desire to move elsewhere but considering that HYDRA found his and Bucky’s location they had no choice but to move. FRIDAY had already made the arrangements and had Happy pick them up by the time he woke up in the morning. Wanda was also around though conspicuously silent, and James seemed… uncomfortable with her. Halfway through their trip and James slowly shifting closer to Tony he decides he’s had enough. “One, James learn about personal space. Two, what the hell happened between you and Wanda? Because you were fine last time I checked and now James is trying to crawl into my lap while looking at you like you’re going to jump out at me or something.” And it was increasingly uncomfortable for him to sit in this much tension.

“Why didn’t anyone tell me she was HYDRA?” James asks, snaps really. Tony swears under his breath because he completely forgot about that.

“Admittedly that seems like a stupid thing to forget to tell you but that’s what happened at least on my end. But she only joined HYDRA because I killed her parents so this is technically my fault,” Tony says.

James frowns and looks between him and Wanda, “okay, what?”

“I used to be a weapons dealer,” Tony explains, “my weapons ruined her country and killed her family. And that Ultron disaster killed her brother which, my fault. So uh, if it wasn’t for me she never would have joined,” he mumbles, slouching in his seat some.

“It was a stupid decision and I never should have done it,” Wanda throws in.

“I think that goes without saying,” James snaps at Wanda, “and I am having an admittedly hard time following the logic for both of your reasoning here. How the hell did someone else setting off your bomb make you responsible for Wanda joining a terrorist organization?” James asks.

“It was a rough time in my life and I was wrong-” Wanda starts but James cuts her off.

“No fucking shit joining a terrorist organization full of Nazis is a bad plan, do you really think a dead family excuses that? What about all the people HYDRA has hurt huh? Or do you only care when it’s _your_ family that-”

“Hey!” Tony yells, cutting James off before he got too nasty. “What right do you have to judge, you flat out told me that you don’t care about killing my family. You’re hardly a bleeding heart. Besides, my nickname used to be The Merchant of Death. Think about that for a moment,” he says.

“What is that even supposed to mean?” James snaps.

“It means that throwing on a suit and calling yourself ‘Tony Stark’ doesn’t stop you from being a terrorist. Yeah Wanda did some obviously dumb and bad shit, so did I. We’ve both moved past that now because we both realized we were assholes. No need to get nasty,” Tony says.

James glares forward for a long moment, reminding Tony strikingly of the look he had when he shot the camera after killing his parents. “Out of curiosity here when do the people who _actually_ set off the bomb that killed Wanda’s parents get responsibility for their actions? And when does Wanda? This isn’t all your fault Tony, you only made the bomb. That’s your fault but how someone else uses it and Wanda’s entire trajectory after that has nothing to do with you. Wanda isn’t stupid nor is she a child and even if she was even children know Nazis are bad, I know because I’ve heard them say it. Don’t take responsibility for actions that aren’t yours, I’m pretty sure its encouraging the Avengers to blame you for everything because you conveniently allow them to not own up to their part in the messes they help create. Wanda was a Nazi terrorist because that’s what she wanted to be- unless that bomb blew up her morality she has no excuse.”

*

Tony leaves James to go sulk and act like an ass elsewhere because he needed some damn space. The ride to their new location- another one of Tony’s houses- had been rather awkward all around. It was enough that Happy ran off right away and Tony was more than tempted to go with him.

“Hey,” Wanda says, catching him off guard for a moment. “Sorry. I just… I wanted to thank you for standing up for me. You didn’t need to.”

“But I did. If it wasn’t for me than you wouldn’t be on the path that you were on, that’s my fault whether or not any of us like it,” he says. It was true, if he never designed weapons, went back on making all those deals the first time he felt guilty for doing it so much could be solved right now. There were so many conflicts in which he was directly involved that would have been so much better off if he never stuck his nose where it didn’t belong. He should have stuck to all those other projects he thought were cool that Howard told him were worthless. Howard was the worthless one.

“No, James is right. I knew what I was doing was wrong and I didn’t care, and I didn’t care who I hurt if I got to hurt you. I’ve caused way more problems for others in the pursuit of a ridiculous revenge plan against a man only vaguely related to my family’s death than you caused me. And… and I did that because I didn’t know you or anything about you,” she says, shaking her head.

“And that means…?” he asks, not sure what that statement was supposed to mean.

“It means that I assumed you were a selfish, narcissistic monster when you were really only a sad, broken man fighting demons I am happy I have never met myself. Yes, you made that bomb, and yes, that was stupid of you. But my decisions are still my own and I am tired of pretending they aren’t. It only leads to Steve acting as if I am a child and you treating me like one. I am a grown woman; I can take responsibility for my own actions,” she says.

Yeah, he supposed he earned that. He never should have had Vision keep her on the compound without her knowledge, if he had just _asked_ she probably would have been fine with lying low for awhile. She was fine with it until Clint showed up anyways; it was his not telling her that had been the problem. That whole airport scene could have been a lot less damage had he just talked to her like a normal person. “Sorry about the compound, I should have talked to you,” he says.

“Yes you should have, but there was no need for me to throw cars at you. I… I have acted like a total fool and I just… I’m not sure how to get out of that pattern,” she says eventually, obviously having a hard time finding her words.

“I know what it’s like. I think in patterns, always have, but the problem is that the patterns aren’t useful anymore. Now I find myself thinking through things in increasingly panicky and illogical ways but I can’t stop it, it’s like… like…”

“Like you’re compelled,” Wanda says.

“Yes, exactly! I know that running tests on that stupid stone was a dumb idea but I kept circling around and around the idea of aliens coming back here and what would I do and- and I shouldn’t have run the tests. But I felt like I had no choice,” he says. The others didn’t get it, Steve complained of teamwork and the others assumed he only did it out of arrogance, because he assumed he was right. That wasn’t it at all though; he saw the world die, he saw that he had an opportunity to see if something was possible and he took it. He never dreamt that Ultron would become a reality let alone a genocidal one. All he was doing was trying to change what he thought was the future.

“You know you were the only one who dreamed of what would happen to everyone else? Your worst fear was that the world would die and I assumed that you viewing it as your fault made you arrogant. But that wasn’t exactly true- you didn’t think it was your fault because you think you’re the only one capable of saving the world, you thought it was your fault out of an overdeveloped sense of guilt. I’m sorry for misjudging you,” Wanda murmurs, “and I am even more sorry for making your worst fears a near reality.”

That was a first. Even Pepper assumed he fought out of arrogance, that he assumed he knew all when that was so far from the truth. Sometimes he really did know all but rarely about world saving matters- the evidence is clear. That was why he signed the Accords. He might have his fair share of distrust in the government and for some damn good reasons, but at a certain point he had to admit that his own decisions were just as shitty and corrupt. At least on a world stage everyone got an opportunity to have a say in non-emergency situations and that was fair. More fair than one of the Avengers needing something from a random country and just invading. He supposed that was pretty American, but it wasn’t right and he figured Steve would agree. Imagine Tony’s surprise when Mr. Government Is Awesome Rah Rah hated the idea.

It pissed him off that Steve went on and on about teamwork but when the world expected them to collaborate with them as a team he was suddenly against the idea. But Wanda had said something interesting and he wanted to know about it. “What do you mean I was the only one who dreamed of other people?” he asks.

Wanda shrugs, “Steve dreamed of being useless after war, Natasha dreamed of a ballet school I think she was tortured at, Bruce feared the Hulk and that was his ultimate undoing, Thor dreamed of lightening and some sort of destruction. But you, you saw the whole world die and I thought you assumed only you could save it when Steve blamed you. But I think I misinterpreted that. I think the dream was you viewing your hero skills as lazy, weak, and Steve calling you out in your dream was him telling you that you weren’t good enough. And you believed it, felt guilty for it even though the destruction you thought you caused through bad heroic skill. I can see why you sided with the Accords if your worst fear is not doing the job you were supposed to.”

And hasn’t that always been his fear? He’s never thought he was good enough and has never been in a position where he could tell people that. Who would understand the boy genius billionaire hero that his fears that he was a fraud were well founded? Even Rhodey would probably tell him that he was being stupid, that he had no right to complain with his success and money. It was true, how could he possibly complain when people had it so much worse than he did? There was no reason for him to feel like he wasn’t good enough when all he did was succeed, excel in almost every area. He once read about this thing called ‘imposter syndrome’ and it fit surprisingly well for him. He too felt like he was living the life of a fraud, terrified that at some point everyone would find out he was counterfeit.

Imagine his shame when the world finally caught on.

*

James watches Tony closely but he appears comfortable with Wanda around for some reason. James didn’t like her much and he was only just starting to get comfortable with her.

“What I’m getting from you, James, is that you’re upset that Steve hadn’t told you- or Bucky- about Wanda being a former HYDRA operative. But Tony knew as well, why are you not upset with him?” the therapist asks. He didn’t really have a desire to field Bucky’s appointment with the damn therapist but since _someone_ had kept the knowledge that Wanda used to be HYDRA to himself he was stuck here. Well, Bucky wasn’t _scared_ of her per se but he didn’t seem fond of stepping forward. These days if Bucky didn’t want to be left in the dark he’d fight not to be and he wasn’t, so clearly he didn’t seem to mind James dealing with Wanda instead of him. The silver lining, he supposed, was that the session was over the phone.

“Tony said he forgot and given that he used to have panic attacks at the thought of being near me I get it. Besides, I killed his parents, what obligation should he have to tell me anything? Steve is supposed to be Bucky’s best friend, he’s supposed to care about his safety and all that crap. He should have thought that _maybe_ telling Bucky about Wanda being former HYDRA would be a good idea,” James says. Better than coming across the information himself in the middle of trying to rescue Tony from Wanda’s former pals. Bucky was supposed to be Steve’s top priority but James thought he did a piss poor job at prioritizing Bucky at all.

“Alright. And this thing with Wanda, this is what you took from this run-in with HYDRA?” the therapist asks.

“Was I supposed to take something else from this?” James asks. He certainly didn’t think so.

“Perhaps some lingering fear of your former captors? Resentment even, something along those lines?”

“Oh, well yeah I have plenty of that but not towards HYDRA. They’re scum, whatever. I’m better trained than all of them anyways, the words were to control me so I _didn’t_ kill them or go nuts like the other Winter Soldiers. But this Wanda thing, I was supposed to trust her, she was supposed to be a good person and apparently none of these idiots thought that _maybe_ a person who decided that working with HYDRA for whatever reason was good inside? Come on, they’re _Nazis_ , anyone who makes the decision to work with them is a piece of shit. And did I get to the part where Tony did some pretty impressive mental backflips to blame himself? He’s the one who really needs a shrink here,” James mumbles.

“Do elaborate on _that_. Between you and me if you know anything about psychology Stark is one interesting man,” the therapist says.

James snorts, “you’re telling me. He’s all ‘but I made the bomb that killed her family, wahh’. Get over it; he wasn’t even the one who _actually_ dropped the bomb. In what world do you blame the guy that made the bomb before the one who dropped it? And who he hell joins Nazis for revenge? Shitty people, that’s who. But anyways Tony’s off blaming himself for things he had nothing to do with because Wanda apparently can’t take responsibility for her own actions. What is she, five? Shit even I take more responsibility that her and my brain got toasted extra crispy when I didn’t cooperate. But I at least admit that it was me who killed all those people,” he says. Sure, there were extenuating circumstances but it was him, sometimes Bucky but mostly him. He could have defected, _did_ defect frequently. He could have done it more and saved lives but he didn’t and that was on him, no one else.

“You don’t blame HYDRA despite the uh… dire circumstances?” his therapist asks.

“Nope. There were plenty of times I did whatever I wanted instead of whatever they wanted me to do, I could have avoided killing those people if I wanted to. it would have sucked but I could have done it,” James says.

“They would have eventually killed you,” his therapist points out.

“So what? It would have been better than living with them. Probably should have resisted more based on that alone but I didn’t. That’s on no one but me.” And Bucky knew it too, he told Steve that but Steve stuffed his head in the sand like the asshole that he was, content to see only what he wanted to.

“You know James, earlier you told me that you were quite cold, that you don’t care for others like Bucky does but I think that’s only partially true,” the therapist says.

“I am cold, I was made to be a monster and that’s what I am. I own it,” he says flippantly.

“I’ve met some truly heinous people, James, people far worse than you. I can assure you it is my professional opinion that you are poorly adjusted to a life outside of HYDRA, but you certainly not cold. You’re fiercely protective of Tony, you have a very strong moral compass regardless of how skewed it can be, and strangely despite your apparent dislike for Bucky you’re fiercely protective of him too. You’re not cold James, you simply only extend care to those you feel deserve your efforts. It isn’t necessarily a bad way to be, though you have a lot to learn about making friends,” she says.

James wrinkles his nose at her assessment though he was curious as to who could possibly be worse than a weapon made specifically to be a cold, heartless killer. “I am not protective of Bucky, and no one else is going to protect Tony including himself. Someone has to, seriously, he’s a _mess_.” A hot one but still. And he had no desire to make friends, what the hell would tell them when he was Bucky half the time? That’d be too confusing so no thanks. Plus friends were effort James would rather put elsewhere, like attempting to create Bucky’s pasta and failing miserably at it. He thought he was alright at cooking but it turned out he was horrible, thanks Bucky for messing that up for him.

“You are protective of Bucky, especially in regards to Steve. You seem concerned with how Steve treats him and what he should do instead- if you didn’t care about Bucky you wouldn’t have many thoughts on him at all. Though I agree with you on Tony- he could use therapy but sadly he thinks psychology is a junk science,” she says, her tone indicating what she thought of _that_.

“That’s a weird opinion considering my therapy was his idea. Think anyone has ever told him he’s a hypocrite? I’ll happily point that out to him,” he says in a cheery tone.

“I can do without the help James, thank you. You should probably learn how to give criticism without being cruel first,” the therapist says.

“Can’t help if it's honest,” James chirps. If other people couldn’t handle it that was their problem, he was only calling it like he saw it.


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for a little bit of ableism (I don't know why poor Rhodey always ends up me 'but what if mental illnesses are fake!' guy but here we are), and a bit of victim blaming towards the end.
> 
> I was going to update another story of mine but then I was like nah, so enjoy :)

Bucky picks at James’ attempt at cooking and wrinkles his nose. He couldn’t believe he used to eat this shit, he didn’t even know how to properly spice things. “Yeah, you’re the better cook,” Tony tells him, shuffling into the kitchen looking bleary-eyed and tired. He goes straight for the coffee machine and Bucky doesn’t get that at all. Wanda drank coffee too and on a whim he had tried it but he nearly spat it back out it was so disgusting. He couldn’t remember if he liked it in the forties but he absolutely hated it now. James called him a wimp but as far as Bucky was concerned James was a freak of nature for liking coffee _black_. Bucky had had to add fourteen sugars and a ridiculous amount of milk to make the liquid tolerable.

“I’m the better everything all aroun- wait you drink coffee black? What is _wrong_ with you?” Bucky asks, genuinely concerned for Tony’s health. Bucky knew James was fucked in the head but maybe Tony should go to therapy too if he thought that black coffee was an acceptable thing to drink. Only people that hate themselves would drink that crap.

“What’s wrong with _me_? FRIDAY told me about you adding _fourteen_ sugars and a bunch of milk to your coffee. That isn’t even coffee anymore, it’s sugary milk with a slight coffee flavoring. You’re a fucking barbarian and as much as I hate to admit it James at least knows how to drink coffee. Take note,” Tony tells him, taking a sip of his coffee.

“You need a psychological intervention if you think black coffee is even remotely palatable,” Bucky says. “And I’m the one who cooks and stuff so I’m the authority on flavors.”

“Bullshit. Black coffee is the only acceptable coffee. Get the cat off the counter,” Tony tells him, shooing at the cat to get off the island she just jumped on to.

“Why? She just wants attention,” Bucky says, petting the cat’s soft head. She purrs and bumps her head into his hand when he pulls it away a little. And there was all that crap about cats not loving you, clearly those people were just not worth of cat love.

“She steps in her own shit, want to eat cat crap Mr. Flavor Expert?” Tony asks.

“One, cleaning the counter before cooking is necessary for a sanitary space anyways. Two, humans lick each other’s assholes and call that sex. Yeah, discovered rimming was a thing the other day. So if humans were _really_ concerned about hygiene they would avoid all sexual contact. Actually just contact in general, do you know how disgusting the human body is? Do you know what kind of shit lives in our eyelashes? After reading _that_ article I was tempted to pluck them out but James thinks we’d look stupid without eyelashes,” he says. And he threatened to dye their hair blonde and Bucky knew from an unfortunate experience in his teens that that was a bad idea.

“Humans are disgusting, get the cat off the counter. And James is right; you’d look stupid with no eyelashes. And so would I, could you imagine me with no lashes?”

Bucky looks at Tony’s face, _really_ looks at it and quickly decides eyelashes were necessary even if they are disgusting because Tony’s face would be incomplete without them. “You have really pretty eyelashes,” he says. They were so thick, surrounding his eyes like that. It almost looked like he was wearing makeup to create the effect.

Tony wrinkles his nose, “they’re _eyelashes_ how pretty can they be?”

“You have beautiful eyes that would be incomplete without those eyelashes,” Bucky says, tilting his head to the side as he examined Tony’s face. It wasn’t something that he ever noticed before but Tony had a really pretty face, especially his eyes. James, because he’s an asshole, also supplies Bucky a few choice comments about Tony’s ass. He wrinkles his nose and shakes his head to shake the thoughts out of his head. Fucking James.

“What was that?” Tony asks.

“James thinking about your ass when I have standards,” Bucky says.

_Standards. You’re a fucking puritan._

Bucky ignores James’ comment because it wasn’t worthy of a response. He was _not_ a puritan anyways; he just thought Tony’s face was better than his ass.

 _Liar_.

Bucky ignores that too because it wasn’t like James spent an abundance of time looking to know. Thankfully Tony diverts Bucky’s attention back to him as he half turns, looking at his own ass. “What do you mean you have standards? I have a great ass,” Tony says, looking at said body part with a frown. “You know what, I’m gunna need more coffee if you’re going to have a gay panic alright. Give me ten minutes and get the damn cat off the counter.”

He lifts he cat off the counter and into his lap but she isn’t pleased with being balanced on a person balancing on a stool so she runs off to do cat things. Tony starts chugging his coffee and Bucky sighs, “I’m not having a gay panic. Gay panic was said and done after that smooch with Steve. He needs chapstick.”

Tony snorts loudly into his cup, spraying coffee all over himself before he attempts at laughing, but due to the liquid it ends in choking. “Oh my god that is _hilarious_. Still can’t believe Captain America is totally gay for his army buddy. I _swear_ people have written stories about this exact premise online.”

“That’s nice. Just so you know the coffee that’s now all over you totally decreased your attractiveness. That disgusting and bitter liquid is not a good look on you,” he says.

“Screw you Barnes, every look is a good look on me, coffee included. The only bitter thing here is your bad attitude.” Bucky snorts a little, hiccupping almost before… laughing? He doesn’t pay too much attention; Tony’s annoyance over his looks being questioned was too funny to waste time on thinking about how long it has been since the last time he’s actually laughed.

*

James needed a thing. Bucky had those stupid meme things, horrible taste in music, that damn cat that hated him, and terrible mental health jokes that he recently discovered. So he needed to scour the Internet or something to find a vaguely enjoyable thing. He was currently under house arrest anyways so he might as well do something with his time, Bucky was bored enough to retreat so James could be bored for awhile.

But first he needed to establish limits, which was how Tony found him with a pair of garden shears holding his hand out in front of him ready to stab the ground. “You’ve set that thing off like seven times in the last twenty minutes, what the hell are you doing?” he asks, arms crossed.

“Making a perimeter around the house so I know how far I can go out before this thing busts me for trying to cure my boredom,” he says.

“Well if you didn’t try and cure your boredom by beating some sorry bastard up you wouldn’t _have_ to do this,” Tony points out.

“Well if he didn’t beat his kid he wouldn’t have gotten a taste of his own medicine,” James snaps back, “how the hell am _I_ the wrong one?” That guy had a choice in what he did, he could have been a good parent and a decent human being or at least picked on someone his own size yet _James_ was the one in shit here? Unbelievable. He didn’t expect the kid to assume it was divine intervention though, but he guessed being mistaken for Jesus was flattering.

“Because you can’t just be judge, jury, and executioner. There are laws for this sort of thing,” Tony says.

“I think there should be exceptions, like Nazis and child abusers. Who cares if they die? They’re scum. And yeah, I’m sure the law _totally_ would have worked on Howard. I watched him skip out of the law like seven times looking for the perfect opportunity to kill him. A little vigilante justice never hurt anyone. Except that guy I kicked the shit out of, but he deserved it,” James says, stabbing the shears into the ground when the stupid bracelet starts beeping at him again.

Tony sighs and rubs his temples, “you can’t just beat up people you don’t like. Even if they probably have it coming. It’s illegal for one, and immoral for two. Plus god knows what that’ll even do to you like… mentally or whatever given your past. So… just don’t beat people up and you won’t be on house arrest,” Tony says, flapping a hand around.

“I was built for violence Tony, I’m sure it doesn’t do anything to me when beat people up. And I stand by my decision, that guy deserved worse than what I gave him. People who hit children are fucked up,” he mumbles. And coming from him that was pretty bad because he was pretty loopy himself if the therapist was to be trusted.

“Yeah, pretty sure the fact that you think committing violent crimes should have no affect on you is probably an issue in itself but by all means, ruin my lawn by setting your limits. Please tell me Bucky cooked something before he left your ass here in his wake, I’m starving.”

“He made fettuccini Alfredo and if you go anywhere near it I’ll kick your ass next,” James threatens.

It’s a testament to how comfortable Tony has gotten around him that his response was to roll his eyes and mumble, “sure you will,” before walking off to eat James’ dinner. James wasn’t about to have that though and he was faster so he beats Tony to the fridge.

*

“You know I miss you these days, you spend more time with Bucky than me and I’m offended,” Rhodey says. He stabs at his rice with his chopsticks and Tony cringes, appalled by Rhodey’s inability to properly eat Chinese.

“Well I’m here now honeybee, so be grateful. And to be fair last week I got kidnapped, and I’ve been busy with the former assassin living in my house,” he points out, properly picking up his rice to subtly show Rhodey who was superior here.

“You’re only here because Bucky’s other personality- and we _are_ returning to that later- has discovered horror movies. You should learn how to handle Harry Potter and some woman dressed for a funeral,” Rhodey says, waving his chopsticks around.

“The Woman in Black looked terrifying okay, you know how I am with horror,” he says. Ever since that one time back when he and Rhodey were still in MIT…

“Yeah, yeah, I know. You’d think a genius would be smart enough to _not_ drop acid and watch Freddy Kruger but here we are, twenty years later and you can’t handle horror because you were a particularly stupid teen.” Rhodey snorts, shaking his head at Tony’s antics like he wasn’t right there with him.

“Okay you know what, horror movies are scary okay? And the couple having sex always dies first, _I’m_ the couple having sex and I feel like I shouldn’t get killed first in slasher films in the middle of a good lay, thanks. Also you were totally with me when I decided watching Freddy on acid was a good idea so don’t even. _You_ were the one calling your mom freaking out,” Tony points out.

“Okay no, I called my mom to say hello and the fact I was scared was irrelevant. You know she hated you for getting me into shit all the time, right?” Rhodey says, smiling just a little because those were some good times even if he lived in constant fear that his mom would beat his ass.

“I know. But I grew on her,” Tony says.

“Only because you complimented her cooking. Complimenting my mama’s cooking was the way to her heart. Plus she seemed to realize you didn’t really have anywhere to go and she’s always been fond of the strays,” Rhodey says. Yeah, so Tony knew. She might have hated him at first but once she got him housebroken she didn’t mind him so much. Except that time he got Rhodey arrested because he was too sassy to that cop but it ended okay in the end.

“That is true, but to be fair food is the way to my heart and she was a damn good cook. I miss her chicken. And the way she’d smack my hand with a wooden spoon if I tried to get into it before dinner,” he says.

For a moment Rhodey is silent, certainly remembering the unfortunate day his mom died but he quickly moves on. “So this Bucky thing, how is that going? Or is it the other one? I don’t know how you might keep track,” Rhodey says, waving a hand around.

“Trust me only someone lacking basic observation skills or Steve wouldn’t be able to tell Bucky and James apart. They speak completely differently, act completely differently, have different tastes in food, music, probably movies given that I can’t see Bucky liking horror. Believe me, you’d know right away which one you were talking to. They’d probably have different fashion tastes if I didn’t buy a bunch of clothes that were stylish and would fit.” He probably should let them pick out their own stuff, it might be good for self actualizing or whatever the hell the therapist said and thanks to online shopping Tony didn’t have to risk releasing James on anyone.

“You seriously believe that? I mean not to be rude but that sounds kind of unbelievable,” Rhodey says, shrugging almost apologetically.

It takes Tony a second to realize Rhodey’s hesitant stance on the subject was because he was obviously offended and he has never been hard to read. “I’ve had FRIDAY scan him several times and his _physiology_ changes depending on personality. People lie, scans don’t. Plus I’m not an idiot; I noticed the changes long before I figured out they were different people. Certain actions and phrases weren’t adding up,” he says, remembering the first time he noted the change from Bucky to James. Bucky had been shrinking back into himself, obviously frightened and he clearly had no idea how to handle Steve. James had no problem telling him where to go, how to get there, and what to do when he got there too. Not exactly the actions of a guy who had been bordering on a panic attack ten seconds before.

Rhodey sighs, considering Tony’s words for a moment. “Look, I don’t know man, this just seems like it’d be a convenient manipulation tool,” he says eventually.

Tony outright laughs, earning an eyebrow raise from Rhodey. “To what end? So I’ll take him in, pay for everything he has, pay for his therapy, keep him company? I’m already doing all of that Rhodey, what more could he want? There’s nothing in it for him to somehow change the way he thinks and reacts to things so much that FRIDAY picks up on different biological cues. I get your worry, I do, but this isn’t something a person could make up. Bucky wasn’t even in a good enough psychological state when I first took him in _to_ have made this all up.” The guy barely got out of bed, the only reason he did most things was because James took over. Then he discovered cooking and hasn’t stopped, thank god.

“I guess. It’s just… you were so angry at him before, and scared and now you’re jumping to his defense? Why? I know that he wasn’t what you expected but this is a bit much for you to believe considering you think psychology is a junk science,” Rhodey points out.

He guessed Rhodey had a point on that last bit but… “I also take a look at the evidence. I’ve met some good actors in my time but come on, _no one_ is that good of an actor. And FRIDAY is an AI, she’d pick up on inconsistencies better than I would and she’s convinced. Yeah, that sounds far fetched but not long ago so did my suit. Lets face it, a guy developing another personality is not the most bizarre thing that has ever happened on this planet,” he says.

“Name one thing that is weirder and more unbelievable,” Rhodey says.

“Religion,” Tony says with no hesitation, “you’ve even got variety there.”

Rhodey rolls his eyes, “of course you would go there. There is nothing wrong with believing in god, or gods.”

“And there’s nothing wrong with Bucky having another personality. I mean James is a complete cock but his presence isn’t inherently horrible, Bucky just got a shit alter. That’s not his fault. But I stand by religion being far weirder than any mental health condition Bucky has.” Some magical dude in the sky who was all-powerful? Completely palatable to some people. Dissociative Identity Disorder? Oh, that’s crazy. Yeah okay, sure DID is more unbelievable than a god that’s basically a Mary Sue.

*

Tony, James quickly learns, does not like horror. Even the slightest tone change in the movie would cause him to jump even without any context to the film. He guessed that was the point but he would have assumed a guy who lived out a horror film several times over wouldn’t be afraid of them. Apparently he was wrong.

“Should I be like… worried about your love of gore? Because I feel like I should be worried,” Tony says.

“I told you I’m a creature build for violence, its who I am. How was Rhodey?” he asks. He turns the TV off though so Tony doesn’t freak out and jump two feet off the ground because the music changed suddenly. Tony needed to learn how to handle his horror, honestly. So did Bucky, he made a slight appearance, noted the film and left with some lingering disgust for James. Whatever, he thought the Powerpuff Girls were cute so he was clearly the more demented one.

“Rhodey is fine, worried about me, but fine. It’s not like that’s anything new,” Tony says.

“Why’s he worried? You seem a lot less of a tight wad than you were a couple months ago,” James says. Back then Tony freaked out at his very presence though James supposed he earned that. He _did_ kill Tony’s parents after all.

“Yeah, but I also defended your general presence in Bucky’s mind to Rhodey, who apparently thought that was weird or something. I mean he isn’t wrong exactly wrong but… I don’t know, I’m just so exhausted with hating you. You’re a dick but at least you’re upfront about it, you don’t pretend to be something you aren’t just to be more tolerable to people and god knows I hate myself for it but I actually kind of like you,” Tony say almost grudgingly.

James tilts his head to the side, examining Tony for a long moment. “You hate yourself for everything you do, maybe you should just give up on trying to be what people want you to be and starts being yourself. Might end in a lot less disasters if you weren’t trying to play the role everyone expects you to be. And I don’t think you should hate me for killing Howard, we both know I basically did you a favor there. We can agree to disagree on your mother though.” He still thought she got what was coming to her but Tony wasn’t exactly fond of that theory so he keeps that to himself. Mostly.

“Just because you’re a jackass doesn’t mean the rest of us need to be but you’re right. When Howard died I felt guilty for years because all I felt was relief. At least until I learned my mother was in the car too. Why do you hate her so much though? She did the best she could with what she had, I believe that and so should you,” Tony says meaningfully.

“Did she? No offense but anyone who leaves a kid in conditions like that doesn’t really have much to offer.” Harsh, maybe, but true.

Tony snorts, shaking his head. “That’s the thing James, what else was she supposed to do? Howard would have found her anywhere she went with me, you already pointed out he was above the law not long ago, all she had left was to stay. It might not be ideal but she had no other choice.” James clenches his jaw because he doesn’t quite agree, Maria had more agency than that but he doesn’t say anything. He knew better than to ague Tony’s point because he truly believed it. At a certain point arguing someone’s stance on a subject was useless if you knew it would never change.

“Hey, what’s with you and kids anyways? You don’t seem much fond of anyone who hurts them,” Tony says, drawing James’ attention back to him.

“Should anyone be fond of someone who hurts kids?” James counters, raising an eyebrow.

Tony rolls his eyes, “well no, but most people aren’t as… sensitive to kids’ issues as you are,” Tony points out.

James shrugs, “kids are trusting, they don’t really have much of a choice but to rely on the adults around them and it rubs me the wrong way to know that people break that trust. You don’t hurt someone who has put their everything into your hands like that, its cruel and unusual. Anyone who is complicit in that is a horrible person.”

Tony doesn’t seem to have a response for that, just looks at him for a long moment before heading to the kitchen to presumably attempt at cooking seems how James didn’t leave him any of that pasta. He makes sure to stare at Tony’s ass the whole time to prove Bucky wrong about him not staring enough to know what Tony’s ass looks like. And it was a fine sight too.

 _You are_ depraved _, James_ Bucky thinks at him but James ignores it because he doesn’t care what Bucky thinks of him staring at Tony’s ass.


	27. Chapter 27

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good and bad news! I am really feeling the end of this story so there is definitely only going to be a few chapters left. My only issue is that I haven't exactly got Tony/ Bucky together but I like to hope I've found a way around that (that does involve them together, FYI). I have a few more plans for James/ Bucky and some stuff to do with a few other characters and then I think this sucker is ready to be wrapped up!

“Tony told you to buy clothes?” the therapist asks, sounding somewhat confused.

“Yeah,” Bucky says, “he said something about self actualizing? I have no clue what that means but I guess I won’t be stuck in whatever the hell Tony picked out.” He looks down at the shirt he was wearing with distaste and wondered if Tony had been intentionally trying to dress his terribly. Bucky supposed he deserved that for the whole killing his parents thing though that was a weird way to get revenge on a person. Tony was kind of weird even if it was in a good way.

“Hmm. How did your shopping go?” she asks.

That was kind of an odd question but Bucky got a lot of odd questions in therapy so he goes with it. “It was fine I guess, I didn’t really know what to look for but I found some stuff. And discovered James likes leather for some reason. Neither of us are bikers, why would we wear leather?” he asks himself more than the therapist.

 _To not look like a fucking twit, I am_ not _wearing that shit you bought_ James says, well, _thinks_ at him. Bucky bites his tongue to keep from responding because his choices were perfectly reasonable and he liked his clothes. James could fuck off and suffer.

“So you found styles that you liked then? Did you have any trouble?” the therapist asks.

He shrugs even though she couldn’t see the action over the phone, “not really. I mean it took awhile to find stuff that I’d actually wear but at least I won’t look perpetually ready for a funeral so that’s nice.”

“So there was no anxiety then?” the therapist asks.

Bucky thinks for a moment before he responds, surprised. “No actually, I mean it was a bit tedious but that’s because I still don’t know how to work the Internet right. FRIDAY is really helpful though.” He wanted to ask Tony how the hell he made such a helpful AI- he sort of wanted his own honestly. The AI seemed to have taken a liking to him according to Tony though Bucky wasn’t sure what that meant when the AI was supposed to be code and stuff and to his knowledge code doesn’t feel anything. For all he knew Tony built an AI that _could_ feel- if anyone could do it it’d be Tony.

“That’s fantastic! You’ve shown vast improvement since we first started talking, I hope you know that. Even James has made improvements and we haven’t really spoken much,” the therapist tells him. He respectfully disagreed because James was an absolute ass still but he keeps that to himself.

“Does that… does that mean James will go away if I’m better?” he asks, feeling a distinct pang of worry that wasn’t just his own.

“Do you want James to go away?” the therapist asks. His first instinct is to say yes but then he didn’t know what he would do. James… he sort of took over when things were too much for Bucky and the thought of not having somewhere to go makes him panic just a little.

 _I’ll still be here_ James tells him, tone almost soft, caring even.

“I don’t think so,” Bucky says, “but if I’m okay than why would he stay?”

The therapist pauses for a long moment, “well, not necessarily. Sometimes personalities will integrate but I’m not sure that’s what will happen here. You’re an odd case, Bucky. Dissociative Identity Disorder usually forms in childhood as a result of trauma- other personalities form before the original personality has fully formed. Your personality was already formed when HYDRA… took you apart though. In theory James never should have developed, but I think due to the way HYDRA tried to deconstruct your mind traits that they found desirable went in one direction and the traits they found undesirable went in the other, forming you and James. Because you were already a full personality though I think each of you ended up with bits of each other despite being completely different people. It’s why James isn’t cold and callus like he was meant to be, and it’s why you aren’t without traits James has. Like your fierce protectiveness over people you care about,” she says.

That made sense he supposed, even if he thought James was way too much of an ass to be anything like him. “HYDRA is a bunch of dicks,” Bucky says for a lack of something better. The comment earns him a laugh though so he takes pride in it.

*

Tony sits on the couch watching some cold case show that James has recently taken an interest in due to FRIDAY’s attempt at a horror movie compromise. The therapist assured him that James’ interest in horror wasn’t something he should worry about- he was hardly the first person to take an interest in the genre because of the violence- and suggested it was a cathartic way for him to work out his violent impulses. Tony, however, had hear problems and he could not take being scared like that so FRIDAY suggested mysteries as a way to bridge he gap between Tony’s weak heart and James’ weird love of dead people.

In the AI’s defense James discovered a whole new genre that he enjoyed and Tony didn’t feel the need to flee his own home if he went into the living room. “Thanks for letting me buy my own stuff. You should see the shit Bucky picked out, he has absolutely no taste,” James says, wrinkling his nose in distaste.

Tony huffs out a laugh, “I can imagine you have totally different styles. I was planning on having you two pick out your own clothing anyways, I couldn’t imagine sharing a wardrobe with someone who was like the opposite of me. I think Rhodey and I would have a wardrobe war,” he jokes, grinning at James. Rhodey was as close as opposite to him as he could think of except maybe Pepper and he didn’t think he’d fit into her skirts. Maybe a shoe war, he could fit into her shoes. This was something he discovered when he made the mistake of telling her wearing heels couldn’t be that bad so she had challenged him to walk in her shoes literally. He was a natural it turned out, but after wearing them for longer than a few minutes he was more than ready to lose the damn things.

“Oh,” James says, looking down at the computer he was currently using. He had custom made it so FRIDAY had more access to it than she would Tony’s own computer but he also knew how to avoid viruses and scams in a way Bucky didn’t. According to FRIDAY James was a far faster learner in that department than Bucky but he was still learning quickly. “Well that’s nice of you. You don’t have to do any of this stuff for us- you know that, right?” he asks.

“‘Course I do, James. But at this point I’m attached, like it or not. Never really saw myself ending up friends with my parents’ murderer but here we are.” God knows he felt horrible for it, but James and Bucky were just as fucked up as he was over this so it didn’t do much good to hate either one of them.

“Just because you like us doesn’t mean you owe us anything. I did kill you mom and I’m not really sorry for it. I am sorry that I hurt you though,” James says softly.

Tony considers James for a long moment, “are you? Sorry that you hurt me, you mean?”

James nods, “yeah I am. I’m sorry that her death hurt you, and I’m sorry I ever told you that I don’t feel guilty about it. You didn’t deserve that and it was cruel of me.” Tony raises an eyebrow because that therapist must be damn good at her job if James was displaying more empathy than he usually didn’t.

“Thank you for that. I’d like to say that’s its okay but it isn’t, I don’t think anything about what happened to either one of us is okay but… but at least I have some peace now. FRIDAY sent me this stuff on restorative justice awhile ago and shockingly she was right about it being good for both of us. She probably could have found better methods but she’s an AI, her job is to make sure I function right and she was doing her best.” She’s still banned from psychology because she’s an AI not a damn therapist, even if she did attempt to bypass that by taking some online psychology classes at some university. He’d give the AI credit; she was certainly as smart and as sassy as JARVIS had been, even if she needed to learn how to do her job better. She was learning though, and she wasn’t doing a bad job aside from the odd hiccup and trying to be a therapy AI.

“I have no clue what restorative justice is but I’m glad that you’ve found some peace. I’m not sure I would if I were you. You all but got forced into taking care of someone who murdered your family and you’ve showed more compassion and empathy to me that I deserve honestly. I would have kicked me out immediately,” James says honestly.

“I thought about it, but I’m glad I didn’t. You’re a total ass but I like you, you make my day interesting,” Tony tells him, grinning.

James smiles back, his cheeks going a little pink. Tony laughs at that because he’d assume Bucky would be the blusher out of the two. James seemed too crude for a gesture so delicate but as usual Tony was wrong in the best of ways. “Thanks Stark,” James says, stretching himself out on the couch, dropping his feet into Tony’s lap, going silent for a long moment before speaking again. “Can I get some books too?” James asks, looking over the edge of his computer screen.

“Sure,” Tony says, smiling when James makes an excited noise and goes back to shopping.

*

“You’re a kid Wanda, it isn’t your fault,” Steve tells her. Sam and Natasha sit in the background doing nothing but their minds are buzzing loudly. Sam disagreed with Steve but he wasn’t going to say it and Natasha’s thoughts were closed off just enough that Wanda couldn’t really tell what she was thinking.

“Stop telling me that,” she snaps, irritated with Steve’s behavior. He was only trying to bring her piece of mind, she knew, but he had an annoying way of going about it. “I am not a child, I have not been a child since Tony Stark’s weapons killed my family.” Not since her own stupidity and allegiance with Ultron killed her twin brother. They went through everything together and her own misjudgment got him killed. She would never forgive herself for that.

“Wanda-” Steve starts but she can hear his thoughts, she was not interested in his excuses for her so she cuts him off.

“I appreciate you trying to make me feel better, I do. But I am a grown woman, and even when I joined HYDRA I knew how awful they were. I didn’t care, I joined them anyways because I didn’t care what they did to other people, I just wanted to get me revenge. This isn’t like Bucky, I wasn’t forced or coerced into it, I _chose_ to join HYDRA and I _should_ take responsibility for that.” James’ words stuck with her because they were true, it didn’t matter what she did to other people’s families so long as she got what she wanted. Now she was at least one person’s Tony Stark all because she made a reckless and irresponsible decision. She was intent on finding that person, or people more likely, and making peace with them if she could. They deserved that much from her.

“You were in a tough spot, Wanda. We all do things we aren’t proud of when we’re in those kinds of situations,” Steve tells her softly.

“Would you have joined HYDRA if you thought that would get you revenge on the man you thought killed Bucky?” she asks. Steve looks down, clenching his jaw a little and she has her answer. “It doesn’t matter what kind of position I was in, Steve. You don’t choose to join a terrorist organization for _any_ reason and you know that so please spare me the ‘you aren’t like that anymore’ speech.”

“You aren’t though, you’ve changed,” Steve points out.

Wanda nods, “you’re right, I _have_ changed and I’d like to think for the better. But what kind of person would I be, what kind of _hero_ would I be, if I didn’t take responsibility for my past actions? Tony has taken responsibility for his wrong doings, James and Bucky have too, and Natasha. It’s my turn to the right thing.” And out of that list only Tony had the autonomy to avoid his actions, just like she had. Bucky, James, and Natasha didn’t have a choice after all they went through and they admitted to wrongs they weren’t completely responsible for more readily than she did.

It was time she took a page from Tony’s book and do what she needed to do to make things right, even if she was sure she would fail just as much as he has. But that was part of learning to be a better person and she was more than ready to take on that kind of responsibility.

“Good for you,” Natasha tells her, picking herself up and gently squeezing Wanda’s shoulder on the way out.


	28. Chapter 28

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I'll only have one chapter left, but we'll see how that one comes out. I might have two more chapters.

“No, no, no, what the hell is that?” Tony asks, pointing at Bucky’s _hideous_ shirt.

Bucky grins, “I like it. James hates it but he hates everything fun so screw him.”

Tony presses his fingers to his temples, “I can’t believe I’m saying this but I like James better, he has actual taste.”

Bucky makes an offended noise, “it’s called ‘Tony Stark Sparkle’ I thought it was funny,” he says.

“There is nothing amusing about me in a flower crown surrounded by glitter. Several different colors of glitter at that. Where the hell did you even find something that ugly?” he asks, tempted to find it and rid the world of all of those ugly shirts.

“I’ve learned that you can find just about anything on the internet,” Bucky say vaguely. “I also got a shirt with the entire script of the Bee Movie on it! Have you seen it? It’s _hilarious_.”

“FRIDAY, I told you to ban him from memes, how did you let this happen?” Tony asks the supposedly perfect AI.

“The Bee Movie is not… oh, I see my mistake now. Bee Movie is blocked,” the Ai informs him.

“Block where ever the hell Bucky got that hideous shirt too, and don’t let him in public wearing that thing. I have a reputation to maintain,” Tony tells FRIDAY.

“I’m on house arrest Tony, I can’t even _go_ outside so there’s no way I can wear this out of the house,” Bucky points out.

“You shouldn’t be allowed to wear it inside either,” Tony mumbles, earning a narrow-eyed look from the hearing-sensitive super soldier. Tony ignores him and goes to work in the lab on some new designs for Pepper.

*

James goes to find Tony some time after he had gone into the lab, urged on by FRIDAY sounding worried about her creator. He wondered how that worked, the emotion thing, or if the AI simply mimicked voice pitch or something. The inner workings of FRIDAY were somewhat irrelevant though because Tony has been in the lab for almost two days straight and someone should probably feed him. James brings him food that Bucky technically cooked but he was going to take credit for it because Bucky technically made him wear that hideous shirt with Tony’s sparkly face on it. Sure, Tony’s face was attractive but come on, desperate much?

“Hey. I made pasta,” James says, shoving the bowl out at Tony. The design he was hunched over looked half complete and… “is that my arm?” he asks.

“No, it’s _an_ arm. I don’t know enough of how yours works to make something that will be as good as the arm that I uh… kind of blew off. T’Challa did a decent job with that one but it doesn’t work as well as HYDRA’s did. Probably because it was made in a rush,” Tony mumbles, grabbing the bowl of pasta and stabbing at it, looking over his design while he did so.

“I don’t really need an arm. Bucky might whine but honestly this thing is a hassle, material keeps getting stuck in the panels when it moves.” Something told him Bucky would be upset if his arm ripped his stupid Tony Stark Sparkle shirt or the even more hideous matching sweater that Tony didn’t know existed yet.

Tony lifts his head a little, considering for a moment before pulling a new notepad out of his desk drawer. “I can probably fix that,” he murmurs to himself, bending further over his notes and scribbling things down. James leaves him because he was eating at least and FRIDAY had been worried about that so he technically gave the AI what it wanted by feeding Tony. Tony continues mumbling about panels and fabric and HYDRA’s engineering skills while James goes off to read some of those books that finally showed up.

*

James looks pleased to be released from his house arrest right until he hits the city and then he gets annoyed at the presence of people. “It’s just coffee,” Tony reminds him. He would have liked to have taken Bucky on this little excursion but he got anxious last minute and James was here instead. James was at least the more stable of the two but he was also more likely to be violent than the other two as well. But the therapist recommended that he be reintegrated slowly to the world and since he was unlikely to hurt Tony or Wanda they got stuck being Bucky or James’ chaperones. Unfortunately for Tony though James refused to go anywhere near Wanda and Bucky was still suspicious.

“I know but I hate people. I like them less after being away from them for so long,” James says. Didn’t Tony know it, he hated people too but mostly he hated the media. It was always something new with him, some new fake story that worked to either make him the villain or the hero without taking into account that he was rarely either one of those things.

“Honestly James, we can agree there. But I miss coffee from actual coffee shops and we’re supposed to go outside and do things so you get used to being in society according to your therapist so we suffer.” He’d prefer to hide away too but sadly he’s learned that running from his problems generally only caused more problems for him down the line.

“I thought you thought psychology was a junk science,” James mumbles at him, disgruntled and annoyed. He did but he also ended up with the responsibility of rehabilitating the guy so he didn’t exactly get a choice. Not that he minded, not now anyways, because he’s developed a weird kind of relationship with James and Bucky both. He never meant to care about them and god knew that probably said some pretty shitty things about his character, bonding with his parents’ murderer, but he supposed it didn’t say anything worse than anything else about him.

“Lets just get the coffee, alright, then we can complain about people and watch crappy T.V,” Tony tells him.

“We should watch TMZ!” James suggests, eyes lighting up with glee. For a moment he sounds like Bucky but the intent was clearly to annoy Tony, which Bucky wouldn’t do.

“Or we can watch a romcom,” Tony suggests and James groans. Bucky recently discovered the whole wealth of the romance genre and _loved_ the stupid films but James loathed them. He did discover that James and Bucky both liked mindless action movies with a lot of explosions so that was a bonus even if they two loved them for totally different reasons. James liked watching people blow up and Bucky loved the senselessness of it all and Tony was just in it to try and deconstruct what would have made those explosions or if they were even accurate.

Coffee goes horribly, James snapped at three people who were minding their own business for all intents and purposes but Tony got his coffee at least. James doesn’t relax until he gets home and even then he remains agitated until Tony settles on the couch with a cupcake that Bucky had baked the day before. He had no idea if it would taste good given that he’s been informed that baking and cooking are _not_ the same even if he had no clue what the difference was. James settles on the other end, curling his feet underneath of himself and glaring at the television.

“Shit, last time I saw that look you were about to strangle my mother. Spare my T.Vs life, will ya?” Tony asks, extending his foot to push James over a little.

James glares at him, “I’ve _killed_ people you know. Get your foot off of me,” he mumbles. What Tony says seems to sink in a little as Tony retracts his foot because James suddenly looks surprised, “wait, did you just make a joke about me killing you mother that one time?” he asks.

“Yeah, which is why I feel compelled to point out that telling me you killed people is a pointless statement. I know that already,” Tony points out.

“But… you made a joke about it,” James says, frowning.

“Better to laugh than cry, it’s a lot less exhausting. Now shut up, I want to watch Die Hard in peace,” Tony tells him, throwing the wrapper from the bottom of his cupcake at James. He swats the wrapper away, earning a sharp meow out of the cat, who happened to appear right at the wrong time in the wrong place. The cat lets out a violent hiss at James and runs off. James mumbles an apology to the cat while Tony eats the cupcake. It wasn’t bad but Bucky could use some work. He’d happily be the guinea pig in testing Bucky’s ability to bake too; he missed home made baked goods and food.

They watch Bruce Willis run around and kick ass for a long while before James shifts, stretching himself out across the couch and dropping his head in Tony’s lap. Tony accepts this but not before he wipes his shirt off, dusting the crumbs from his cupcake onto James’ head and hair. He gets a dirty look and James shakes out his hair but he doesn’t say anything.

*

Tony sits in the lab freaking out a little (a lot) while debating on calling Bucky’s fucking therapist of all people.

He remembers it clearly, getting his morning coffee like normal person and turning, just about mowing down James in the process. James had caught him before he hit the ground at least and Tony managed to save his coffee too but being held to James’ body was more than a little weird. In a good way, he thinks. Maybe. He had no idea. But James had looked ridiculous and oddly endearing in Bucky’s pineapple pajamas looking down at him with his arm wrapped around Tony’s waist to keep him stable. Tony’s free hand had automatically reached out to the closest thing in the vicinity for stability, which happened to be James’ shoulder and they both sort of ignored that half of Tony’s coffee had hit the floor even if Tony saved the other half.

James had frowned a little, looking over Tony’s facial features for a moment before licking his lips. Tony had expected to be released but instead James surprised him by asking if it was okay to kiss him. Tony was fully prepared to blame his reaction on sleep deprivation because agreeing to kiss your parents’ murderer had to be on the Top Ten List of Things You Never _Ever_ Do. The kiss itself was pleasant at least, chaste but that was partially because Americat showed up and started meowing for food and Bucky. When James broke the kiss to look at the cat she reacted by hissing at him and running.

Which was how Tony ended up in his lab freaking out before deciding fuck it, calling the therapist can’t be the stupidest thing he’s done all day and it wasn’t even noon. “Kissing your parents’ murderer has _got_ to say some interesting things about me psychologically,” he says after rushing his story out to her.

She had patience, he’d giver her that. “James asked permission?” she asks and Tony pulls the phone away from his ear to give it a look.

“Did you not hear what I just said? I _kissed_ my parents _murderer_ and I liked it. Think Katy Perry will make a catchy tune with that?” he asks, only half joking.

“Yeah, yeah Stark, what about you and your feelings, who cares about my _actual_ patient. But to address the issue at hand I don’t think there’s anything about you that _doesn’t_ say something interesting psychologically. You can take comfort in that I suppose,” she says.

Tony decides he kind of hates Bucky’s therapist. “Well what the hell am I supposed to do about this?” he asks.

‘Am I getting paid for this?” she asks and Tony makes an offended noise. “What? If you wanted to dump an emotional load on someone without paying them you should have went to a confessional instead of calling a psychiatrist.”

By the time he hangs up he isn’t quite sure how she managed to talk him into therapy with a collogue of hers- treating him, Bucky, and James was some sort of conflict of interest apparently- but that was a thing. And he still didn’t know how to feel about James so _why_ he had an appointment booked with a shrink the next week he had no idea but he doesn’t cancel it.


	29. Chapter 29

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it! If you have any questions about how things work out from here feel free to ask questions in the comments :)

Sometimes Bucky can see things from James’ point of view, can see _Tony_ from James’ point of view and it drives him nuts. James didn’t care about touch, he liked it actually, but Bucky couldn’t handle more than a simple brush of skin without wanting to jump out of his own body and flee. He wonders a lot if Tony thought of him as lesser for it. James didn’t think so but every time Tony went a bit too close and Bucky took a step back to get some room he wondered. Tony never said anything about it, which is why James didn’t think he cared, but James is a simplistic heathen who doesn’t understand people. Just because he didn’t say anything didn’t mean he didn’t care.

Bucky curls up on the end of the couch plenty far away from Tony and wonders what he really thinks. Tony himself is spread out at the other end of the couch with papers around him, mumbling about board meetings and designs. He could sit there and drive himself nuts or he could just ask and he knows which option his therapist would tell him to go with so he extends his foot and pokes Tony in the arm. “Hey. I have a question,” he says.

Tony blinks a few times and shakes his head to focus on Bucky, “yeah? Nothing bad I hope. If you’re having an existential crisis wait until tomorrow to talk to me about it, I have projects that I have to send to Pepper soon,” he says.

Bucky snorts, “I’m not having an existential crisis. I think. I just… does it bother you? That I don’t like touch?” he asks, tone quieter than intended.

Tony is silent for a long moment and Bucky assumes the worst until he speaks. “You know what, I was thinking about this the other day actually. To answer your question no, I don’t care that you don’t like touch but do you? I know James doesn’t care but I can’t exactly ignore that you’re in there too and is it even ethical to have a relationship with one of you but not both? Is it ethical to touch James knowing you don’t like it? What do you two think of this? Because I’m not sure my relationship is only with one of you or the other and I’m really confused and I didn’t want to bring it up.”

Bucky frowns for a moment because he hadn’t considered those things, not explicitly anyways. “I don’t think James and I ever assumed you were with one of us or the other. We’re kind of a package deal; even if you were only with one of us you’d have no choice but to deal with the other. But I don’t think either of us felt left out so to speak, you don’t act much different towards the two of us other than not touching me. I don’t care if you touch James though, he isn’t me and I don’t feel it. Not like normal anyways, if I even notice it’s through James’ point of view. Kind of. It’s hard to explain,” he says. It’s like he was aware, but he wasn’t _there_ , not exactly. James could to that with him too, see things from his life and experience things from Bucky’s life but it wasn’t him doing those things. Mostly Bucky was unaware of when James took over until he came back and noticed his lost time but James told him that he could usually see into Bucky’s life if he mad an effort to.

James said he was more aware because he needed to know when Bucky needed him, even if he had admitted that reluctantly. “Yeah, but…” Tony stops there, trailing off as Bucky’s attention goes back to him. “Doesn’t that bother either of you, the notion of me being with the other? Don’t you get… I don’t know, jealous or something.”

“Sometimes,” Bucky says, “but we mostly don’t know what the other one is doing, and when we are aware of the other it doesn’t really bother us if you’re with the other. Well, it bugs me a little but not because you’re with James, I just think you have a better relationship with him.” He doesn’t want to admit it out loud but it needed to be said if for no other reason than his needing to work through his feelings. Personally he really didn’t like having feelings, they were ruining his reputation. James felt the same way.

“Because of the touching thing?” Tony asks, looking to clarify things.

“Yeah, basically,” Bucky says after a moment, unable to think of any other examples of where James’ relationship with Tony was better than his relationship with Tony. His self-consciousness almost seemed frivolous when he considered that, but touch is a huge part of relationships. He still had a right to worry.

Tony snorts and starts laughing, which Bucky really doesn’t appreciate but when he opens his mouth to tell Tony that he speaks. “Bucky, I’ve _always_ had a better relationship with you. _You_ weren’t the one who killed my mother, _you_ didn’t blame her for her own murder, _you_ didn’t tell me point blank that you don’t regret killing her and _you_ didn’t have to apologize for it. The worst you’ve done to me was harass me with food that one time and once I stopped being stubborn I kind of wanted you to cook for me more. The touch thing sucks sometimes but not because I have a problem with it, I don’t even _want_ to know where the aversion came from and I have _zero_ intentions on testing your boundaries. Most of my issue with the touch thing is that I have no idea how to show affection in other ways, but you’ve managed. You cook for me. And wear hideous shirts with my face on them.” Tony wrinkles his nose at that and Bucky resents that damnit, that shirt was adorable. He had one with Iron Man on it too not that Tony knew about it just yet.

He also hadn’t really considered all the crap James had put Tony though either. “But… like touch is important,” he says for lack of a better argument.

“So? You’re not comfortable with it, what am I realistically supposed to do about that? Accept it is my only option unless I want to be a fucking creep and no thanks. We’ll deal with it,” Tony says. Bucky would like to accept that but worry still lingers in the back of his mind, pressing him to wonder if Tony was just lying for some reason even if he knew that was irrational.

“But what if you like… resent me in ten years or something?” he asks.

Tony sighs, “you aren’t going to let this go are you?” he asks.

“Probably not,” Bucky says honestly, “I should just get over it.”

Tony remains silent for a long moment before he speaks again, “first of all you _don’t_ need to get over anything, but if you’re not going to let it go than maybe I have a solution. If you think this is going to be a problem than you initiate contact. I don’t think playing a guessing game with your limits is a good idea, but if you aren’t going to let this go then you can test things when you’re ready,” Tony says.

The sit there in silence watching one of James’ stupid CSI shows until Bucky breaks the silence, “one, that seems like a good solution. Two, can we change this? First of all it was the damn twin that killed her, and also I don’t really know how James draws any sort of enjoyment out of these shows. Haven’t we dealt with enough murder?” As if either one of them needed any more of that.

“And what do you want to watch?” Tony asks.

“Shrek?” Bucky asks hopefully.

“Absolutely fucking not.”

*

When Bucky answers the door he expects it to be Wanda but Steve is behind the door looking hopeful. “Oh uh… hey?” he says, the statement coming out as more of a question than he meant it to be.

“Um, hey. I brought chocolate, you used to like it and I uh… figured you could try it again. See if that’s still true,” he says, handing over a chocolate bar. Bucky takes it gingerly, at least pleased that Steve didn’t assume that he would still like the food even if he was pretty sure he would. Why Tony didn’t have chocolate lying around in general was kind of odd to him considering what a sweet tooth the man had. In the process of taking up baking he memorized all of Tony’s favorite deserts, none of them containing chocolate oddly enough. Huh.

“Oh. Well thanks. I thought you’d be Wanda. She is still coming, right?” he asks, unsure why he thought Steve would know.

Steve looks a bit disappointed but he recovers quickly, “yeah she’s running a bit late though. Do you mind if we talk?” he asks, a bit of that hopefulness floating back into his tone.

“Hey Buck, Pepper needs me to come in and-” Tony stops talking as soon as he sees Steve and pauses there for a few seconds before turning away from him and ignoring him. “I’ll be back soon though, the last thing I want to do is deal with the damn Board. Will you be okay here?” he asks.

Will he be okay with Steve here, Tony means, but he’s polite enough to skirt around it. “I’m fine Tony, good luck with your meeting,” he says, catching Tony’s hand on his way by and giving it a light squeeze. Tony gives him a brief smile before walking towards to door, mumbling a quick ‘excuse me’ to Steve before all but walking through him. Obviously he wasn’t exactly willing to be nice to Steve though Bucky understood why. Not long ago James asked why Tony ever forgave him to begin with and Tony told him that James nor Bucky had a choice in how things went down. Actually, the only one who _did_ have a choice was Steve. James and Bucky couldn’t help killing Tony’s parents, Tony couldn’t help the way he found out and even his reaction afterwards was up for debate, but Steve had a choice every step of the way. In the end Tony ended up blaming him for the way things ended up.

Bucky didn’t quite think that was fair- Steve didn’t make the right choice sure, but he obviously wasn’t thinking rationally either. He had his own issues to contend with but telling Tony that wouldn’t do much more than piss him off so he kept quiet. “What was that?” Steve asks, frowning at Tony as he gets into his car.

“He’s still not very happy with you about the whole not telling him about his parents thing,” Bucky says, shrugging.

“No, not that. The hand holding… thing,” he says, waving a hand around.

“Oh. Didn’t Wanda tell you?” he asks, hoping to avoid this subject a little longer given that awkward and terribly timed kiss they shared not long ago. Bucky likes to pretend it never happened and James had plenty to say about that, none of it pleasant.

“Wanda didn’t tell me anything…” Steve says slowly. He knew, Bucky could tell, but he could also tell that he didn’t want to know and that he was hoping that Bucky would say something to prove his suspicions wrong.

 _Better nip that in the bud before he plants another kiss on you_ James suggests and Bucky ignores the snide thought.

“Uh… yeah we’re together. Romantically. Sorry, you’re not my type.” If he thought hard about it and did his best to remember his past he had always found skinny Steve more appealing, big Steve just lacked… something. He wasn’t sure what it was but Tony had it in droves.

Steve winces hard but he at least manages to muster up a smile, “congratulations. What does James think about that though?” he asks.

 _Manipulation tactic, don’t let him second guess your decision_ James warns in his mind but Bucky ignores that too. One, he knew what manipulation looked like, and two, when there was an entire other person living in your head it seemed reasonable to ask what they thought of your relationship.

“He can’t really complain, he’s with Tony too and god that sounds so much weirder out loud than in my head,” he says, frowning.

Steve certainly finds it interesting because his brows shoot up, “oh? That’s… James didn’t strike me as the romantic type.”

“That’s because he hates you,” Bucky points out.

 _Ha, see you can be a cold hearted bitch too_ James tells him and Bucky struggles to keep an expression off his face. People looked at him weird if he responded to James in any way in public. The only one who didn’t look at him like he was nuts was Tony, even when he had conversations out loud with James. Granted they only went one way to Tony, but he rolled with it and asked what he was missing instead of staring at Bucky like he was insane.

“Right. Anyways, I came here to apologize for the way I acted with you, I... I’m having a hard time letting go of things and I thought that I got something that I loved back. Something from the past that I really, _really_ needed and I didn’t stop to think about you or how you felt. I’m sorry for that. And sorry about that awkward kiss too, that was just in poor taste,” Steve says. He looks upset still, like he was having a hard time keeping himself together but Bucky guessed that was fair. He didn’t cope well with loosing everything right away either.

“I’d like to say it’s okay but it kind of wasn’t. I’d rather have a warning next time you confess your love for me, and I’d also like you to consider someone other than yourself next time you go making big decisions that drastically affect people’s lives.” Especially since he liked to criticize Tony for doing that same thing, which would be a lot more fair if he wasn’t being hypocritical. “But I appreciate the apology and I do want to see if we can find some sort of middle ground or something. I’m supposed to leave the house at least once a week under supervision and I’m pretty sure you’d count as decent security measures and hopefully decent company if you want to make plans,” he says, offering Steve something at least. He didn’t want to loose a good friend, not with all the history they had, even if a lot of it was bad history as of late.

Steve smiles for real this time and ducks his head, “thank you. I’d be happy to make some sort of plan with you.”

*

“Have you ever had like… an irrational hatred toward someone?” Bucky asks, looking over at Tony and Wanda. James wasn’t impressed with her presence but she has been working through some of her past, finding people she victimized from her HYDRA days and apologizing so Bucky thought he’d give her a chance. James was hardly as forgiving.

“Tony,” Wanda says, wincing a little at the memories.

“Technically you had reason, kind of flimsy reason, but reason nonetheless. Robert De Niro for me though. He isn’t even a bad actor, I just can’t stand him and I feel bad because I have no reason,” Tony says, frowning a little.

“Sam Wilson. Every time I see his rat face I want to punch him in the cock and honestly I don’t think that one time I ripped off his wing, threw him off a helecarrier, and ripped the steering wheel out of his car is reason to hate me. I was brainwashed okay? Give a guy a break. What was his excuse for kicking me in the head?” Bucky asks, rolling his eyes at the mere thought of Sam damn Wilson.

“Probably trying not to die,” Tony points out.

“I’d also kick you in the head if you tried to kill me repeatedly,” Wanda confirms.

“Well there was no excuse for the prank war,” Bucky mumbles. Every time Sam Wilson was around _something_ went wrong. Last time he had to deal with that asshat his cupcakes ended up overcooked and he _knew_ Sam changed the timer on him so they were in longer than they should have been. Tony was a good sport and ate them anyways, even though they tasted like ashy vanilla. He stole Sam’s shoelaces and put a bunch of feta in his shoes. He felt kind of bad about the feta when he discovered the poor cat had gotten into it and got sick from the cheese but she was fine now.

“Alright, that’s fair, but the two of you being petty to each other is hilarious,” Wanda says, snickering.

“That’s true,” Tony says, “the look on Sam’s face when you congratulated him on being less nurturing than a desert after he mentioned accidentally killing his cactus was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen. And the fact that Lang keeps getting caught in the middle is even better. Fuck that guy, I also have an irrational hatred for him.”

“To be fair he did try and tear your suit apart from the inside out and you are very protective of your tech. You sort of have reason there, flimsy reasons, but reasons nonetheless,” Wanda says, mimicking Tony’s earlier words.

“Yeah. Fuck Scott Lang with a prickly pear,” Tony mumbles.

Wanda and Bucky laugh even when Tony gives them an unimpressed look. It was hardly their fault his hatred was funny.

*

Tony wasn’t certain where Wanda got the information and he didn’t really care either, the point was that they at least knew _why_ HYDRA had been after Bucky. Apparently he had some piece of information in his head that they needed or wanted but they weren’t about to get it any time soon. FRIDAY had been sifting through all known HYDRA communication methods and she was now aware of what to look for at all times. The AI was learning well, even if she was still somewhat stuck on they psychology thing. Tony’s therapist found it almost cute minus that time she decided running experiments on Tony was a good plan. But she knew not to do that now and that was all that mattered.

After some deliberation Tony tells Bucky because he figured he should know what was going on- it was his life after all- but Bucky didn’t seem to remember anything of importance from his HYDRA days. James didn’t seem willing to push anything forward either, but that might have been an effort to protect Bucky from something so Tony resolves to talk to him later. In the meantime they were safe and FRIDAY was on the lookout for anything suspicious.

“Hey,” Bucky murmurs, padding into the kitchen quietly, “what has you thinking so hard?”

“HYDRA,” Tony answers honestly.

Bucky wrinkles his nose, “ew. Do we still have orange juice?” he asks, changing the subject in a not-so-subtle way.

“I think James drank the last of it yesterday,” Tony says.

Bucky rolls his eyes and makes an exasperated noise, “he doesn’t even _like_ orange juice. He’s just mad that the lunch I made for work had cute cupcakes in them so he stole my juice,” he mumbles. Yeah, James hated Bucky’s job in a small local bookstore but he didn’t have much choice but to deal with it and according to Bucky a surprisingly small amount of people even recognized him. Tony figured that was for the best.

“I don’t get what his issue is, who cares that there are rainbow sprinkles on purple cupcakes, they taste good,” Tony says. He and James tried to recreate them last week when Bucky took a three day vacation and there was no more food or cakes left around to eat and he had to call in professionals to fix the damn kitchen. Bucky has since banned them both from using anything that isn’t the coffee maker and they were happy to comply.

Bucky wanders closer, pausing a half a foot away and Tony doesn’t move, leaving whether or not Bucky wanted to make any sort of contact up to him. He only pauses for a few seconds though before he steps forward and brushes his fingers along Tony’s jaw, tilting it up a bit and pressing a quick, chaste kiss to his lips before stepping back. “So do you,” he says but he shivers a little, a reaction Tony knew was related to not being particularly fond of touch. He doesn’t draw attention to it though because it made Bucky self-conscious and he knew that Bucky was doing his best to work through things on his own time. It was difficult but sometimes he didn’t shiver at all, and sometimes he could keep the contact for more than a few seconds so he figured it was working. But he still left touch up to Bucky.

“That was cheesy,” Tony jokes and Bucky wrinkles his nose at him.

“Oh shush, with your old pick up lines you have to righto complain about cheese,” Bucky tells him and Tony groans. He needed to have another talk with FRIDAY about Bucky’s meme ban because he _swore_ the AI was leading Bucky to new and more obscure memes, this time the weird trend of Tony’s horrible pick up lines back when memes first got popular. He guessed he should be luck Bucky wasn’t trying to revive those god damn rage faces.

**Author's Note:**

> [My writing Tumblr](https://tenspencerriedplease.tumblr.com/)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Moving Forward](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8387092) by [silver_drip](https://archiveofourown.org/users/silver_drip/pseuds/silver_drip)
  * [Internal Fist Pump and Dance of Victory - Wanda Does Therapy](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8442787) by [Rjslpets](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rjslpets/pseuds/Rjslpets)




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